


Friendship is the Best Ship

by MusicalLuna



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Family, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Not Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase Two Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2018-09-15 21:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 48
Words: 21,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9258173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MusicalLuna/pseuds/MusicalLuna
Summary: Gen fics that were originally posted on Tumblr. An assortment of genres! Mostly very short.





	1. Steve and Tony, rooftop, bad day (Angst)

**Author's Note:**

> Tags and any necessary warnings will be in the notes for each ficlet.
> 
> \--
> 
>  **Warnings:** Mention of high school violence
> 
>  **Tags:** Angst, Bad Day, Sad Steve, Rain, Prayer, Grief

Manhattan, bled dry of color, huddles around the Tower, dark and bleak where it’s not covered in a shroud of fog. An oppressive rain falls in listless sheets.

Tony knows the feeling. Moisture hangs thick in his throat, heavy against his cheeks and eyes. He wants to sit down right here in the doorway and never get up again.

Days like this the job isn’t worth it. It’s too much, and there’s no way he’s taking this as badly as Steve is.

Steve, who stands out at the edge of the roof in his suit with the cowl draped down his back, his blonde hair matted and dulled by the rain that’s soaked him through. He’s got his face turned toward the sky and when he turns his head just so, Tony can see his mouth move. Knows him well enough to know Steve is praying, trying to make sense of what happened, to understand why there’s a high school on the east side dripping red, why with all he does, kids still wind up dead.

Tony shivers in the thin protection of the undersuit and wonders what it was that made Steve into a fighter, not a killer. He looks at Steve’s reflection in the glossy surface of the roof and sees nothing but bloody red smears and wonders how fine that line is.


	2. Tony, dreamy rain, SUSPENSE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **Warnings:** None  
>  **Tags:** Rain, Suspense, Tony Stark, Super Short

The entire island of Manhattan is pitch-black. Dozens of floodlights systematically set up by police and fire have been blown out, except the one Tony stands six yards away from, breathing shakily despite the comforting presence of the suit around him.

The last light on the island lies on its side in an intersection, throwing off a huge, cockeyed vee of white light from behind its shattered glass cover. Rain so fine it’s practically mist drifts across the beam at the dream-like pace of snow. It leaves the street glossy, scattering razor-sharp shards of gleaming reflections over its surface.

Behind the beam of the floodlight, a shadow moves and the beam flickers.


	3. in which Tony is hit with cuddle pollen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** Non-consensual drugging/spelling
> 
> **Tags:** Cuddle pollen, Tony-Centric, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Cuddling, Touching, minor Tony/Pepper, Ensemble, Lack of Proper Punctuation and Such

like the world’s hugest dumbass, tony lifts the faceplate while he’s busy gloating at the capture of new york’s latest invaders and he winds up getting a faceful of fine powdery something or other  
  
steve nearly has an aneurysm   
  
it probably would have been impressive if he hadn’t been right

which just made the whole thing embarrassing  
  
the shield agents yank the invader away from him, coulson barking at him to seal the suit

tony takes offense at that   
  
and also makes a mental note to make the suit into a hazmat suit  
  
he closes the suit up because at least it’ll get coulson off his ass if not do anything to protect anyone   
  
they force him into isolation after

then decontamination  
  
which is a pain in the ass  
  
because they have to decontaminate the suit

and then he’s allowed to get out

where upon he’s then decontaminated  
  
and the water’s freezing, THANKS FOR NOTHING COULSON  
  
by the time he gets out all he wants is a pair of sweats and to feel someone’s hand on his shoulder  
  
“so?” steve demands when he’s out

“idk” tony says wearily, shivering and hunching his shoulders “nothing looks like”

“well that’s a relief,” steve says and clasps his shoulder. “don’t _do_ stuff like that, tony.”

“yeah, sure, okay,” tony mumbles and leans into steve’s hand, curling in toward his chest

steve stares down at him in surprise. “tony?”  
  
tony realizes midway through the motion that this should be weird, that this isn’t pepper he’s curling up to  
  
but steve is just so _big_ and _warm_  
  
he just presses up against steve who’s holding his arms up in surprise and says ‘not a word, rogers’  
  
steve frowns, but loops his arm around tony’s shoulders   
  
it feels _incredible_ and tony nearly moans with the pleasure of it  
  
steve leads him up to the main floor, holding him close against his side   
  
“bruce, i think something is going on. i know they said he was clean, but can you check him out yourself?”  
  
bruce is sitting at the bar in the kitchen, head propped on his hand, eyes half lidded

his brow furrows in concern at steve’s request and he slides off his chair, skirting around to come peer at tony   
  
tony’s strangely sleepy, his hands curled tightly around bits of steve’s clothing  
  
“you feeling okay, tony?” bruce asks

“oh sure,” tony says, “feel great actually. steve’s big and solid, feels nice”  
  
steve turns beet red and bruce’s mouth twitches. “do you mind if i?”

“uh uh, come at me big green,” tony says and tilts his head back, welcoming bruces fingers under his jaw  
  
he sighs at the feel of them, broad and sturdy against his pulse, softer than you’d expect  
  
“whats going on” natasha asks, “wasn’t he cleared?”  
  
her expression is unusually tight which makes tony smile

that’s her worried face  
  
he likes it when her worried face is aimed at him  
  
“he was,” steve says, “but he’s been hanging on to me since we left decon. he’s not usually so…”

“clingy?” bruce says, grinning.

“yeah,” steve says with a wry twist of his mouth

tony starts to pull away, made self-conscious

it’s almost torture to do it; as soon as he’s got so much as a centimetere between them it feels like an ache under his skin, prickling and stretching out to get it back

“where do you think you’re going?” steve asks, pulling him back in

being tucked up against steve’s side is so satisfying his protests get lost before they get to his mouth  
  
“interesting,” bruce says and tony frowns, pulling open eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed  
  
“what’s interesting?”

bruce beckons natasha over, and gestures at tony

“touch him, will you?”  
  
tony’s sternum shivers   
  
natasha narrows her eyes at bruce and then reaches out and pats his shoulder  
  
tony lurches toward her as she pulls her hand back, nearly tipping steve off his feet as he drags him along  
  
natasha’s eyebrows go up and she puts her hand back out, resting it on tony’s shoulder  
  
he sighs in contentment, feeling the soft heat of her hand through the fabric of the sweatshirt, a tiny, delicate point of sensation in opposition to the swathe of heat along his left side where he’s touching steve  
  
natasha pulls her hand away again and a whimper slips from his throat

“you’re right,” natasha says, “that is interesting. clint!”

clint pokes his head out of the tv room

'yeah?“  
  
"come here and touch tony”  
  
“what am i a buddah statue?” tony says, but he’s already got a fizzle of anticipation in his stomach at the idea of more sensation

“i don’t wanna” clint says, pulling his hands in close to his body and staring at tony warily like he’s going to bite

it’s weirdly hurtful and before he knows what’s happening, tony feels tears pricking at his eyes

fuck he needs steve touching more of him, he feels bare and exposed and awful

“hey, i didn’t mean it,” clint says, alarmed

a couple of quick footfalls later, tony feels his palm between his shoulder blades and the relief is immediate  
  
his eyes dry and the starburst of heat from clint’s palm feels like heaven  
  
“oh fuck,” he says and lets his head fall against steve’s chest

“i’m going to try something now,” bruce says and tony only has a second for the dread to wash over him before he adds, “steve, clint, step back, please.”  
  
“no no nonono,” tony protests, but clint’s hand goes first

steve starts to push him back, slipping away from his arm and tony grabs at him futily  
  
“no, come on, _please,_ ” he begs and hears his voice break as steve slides free  
  
he’s cold and aching, tears pricking at his eyes again. it’s like they’ve gutted him, scraped out his insides  
  
“okay, okay!” bruce says, hastily, and all four of them move toward him again at once  
  
steve curls a hand around the back of his neck, the touch like a spike of relief that nearly blanches his vision, and then natasha is moving up against his front, her arms curling around his waist, and tony wraps himself around her, holding on tight

then bruce’s hand strokes his arm and clint’s curls around his wrist and tony breathes out a shuddering, whaling breath, feeling jittery and high

“shit,” he says and bruce hums.

“it looks it’s induced some kind of touch starvation”  
  
“of course it has,” tony breathes into natasha’s shoulder.  
  
thor shows up then, booming, “my friends, i would join you!” before wrapping his arms around all of them and crushing them in one enormous hug

tony laughs, a little unsteadily while the others groan  
  
when thor releases them, bruce explains and thor clasps tony’s shoulder

“it is no great hardship to provide physical affection for one of my breathren.”  
  
“It is kind of nice,” bruce says, patting tony’s head.  
  
“you suck,” tony says.

“well it looks like we’re going to need to stick with tony for awhile,” steve says

“hopefully it will fade with time,” natasha says and tony can feel her analytical gaze on his face like a physical touch

“but for now, let’s go to the couch, we’ll be more comfortable there.”  
  
so they all shuffle over to the couch, tony biting down whines whenever he feels a little of the touch fall away.  
  
steve and thor maneuver around, settling him down on the couch between the two of them, their arms stretched out overlapping over the back of the couch, each pressed up against his side from shoulder to ankle  
  
then natasha and clint sit down, resting their backs against his legs, bruce easing down between them

tony closes his eyes revels in the way it feels to have their bodies all around him, warm and thrumming with life  
  
steve rests a ginger hand on his knee and he hums, head lolling against thor’s shoulder

“so what are we watching?” natasha asks and clint immediately starts bickering with thor

he’s drifting, the fingers of his left hand carding through natasha’s hair and the right clasped in steve’s hand when he hears his favorite voice in the universe

“hello?”

“here!” thor calls

tony twists his head in a half hearted attempt to see over the back of the couch, prying his eyes open

“he’s here, pepper,” steve says, turning and tony makes a noise of protest, tugging on his hand

“sorry,” steve says and settles back, sealing the void

“Pep,” tony mumbles and a moment later, feels her thin fingers dragging through his hair

he shudders, tilting his face up toward her

“oh thank god, you’re all right tony,” she says and it feels like a sparkler under his skin, glittering and bright, when she kisses his forehead  
  
“well, he’s under the effects of some strange substance that’s making him physically crave touch, but other than that, yes, he’s fine,” bruce says

“you should join us”

pepper surveys their little pile of people and nods

“i don’t see why not”  
  
and that’s how tony winds up fast asleep with a lapful of pepper and his teammates surrounding him on every side, a warm blanket of humanity


	4. Tony and Pepper Discuss What Might Have Been If Not For Steve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** None
> 
> **Tags:** not-the-focus Established Steve/Tony, Tony  & Pepper Friendship, What Could Have Beens, Fluff, Banter
> 
> okay, so this one needs a little explanation? there’s this verse i seem to have written/invented all this fanon for? it’s a steve/tony verse where steve shows up somewhere in 2009 and it’s this whole thing, blah blah, basically tony meets steve around the middle of iron man because of reasons and because of reasons winds up with steve instead of pepper (in large part because i can’t stomach the idea of them breaking up characterization- or feels-wise)
> 
> hopefully that explanation wasn’t even more confusing -_-
> 
> anyway, this fic is all about romantic relationships so it's not _exactly_ gen, but it's not exactly not either??

“did you ever think about…y'know, us?” tony says as he hands her a glass of wine and folds one leg underneath himself, sitting sideways on the couch to face her. steve’s gone on s.h.i.e.l.d. business and they’re spending a few hours together while she has a moment to breathe between SI operations.  
  
pepper raises her eyebrows as she sips at the wine. “oh, tonight’s going to be one of those, is it?”  
  
tony wrinkles his nose at her and takes a big mouthful out of his own glass. before he can swallow and get to talking again and denying how much he actually wants to talk about this, pepper says, “of course I thought about us. _I_ probably thought about us more than you thought about us.”  
  
“i don’t know,” he says, raking his eyes playfully down her body, “i thought about us _a lot_.”  
  
pepper rolls her eyes. “you thought about fucking me a lot. that’s not the same thing and you know it. i thought about an actual relationship the moment i laid eyes on you. then you opened your mouth.”  
  
tony leans his head on the back of the couch, biting his lip and wincing. “i was a douche.”  
  
“oh my god, yes,” pepper says, but she’s smiling. “you were awful and i hated you a little bit.”  
  
“but only a little bit,” he says and his eyes are soft and affectionate. “you never let it stop you.”  
  
“you needed somebody. somebody who could lay boundaries–”  
  
“–and you lay boundaries like an ace–”  
  
“–and it took awhile, but it helped. you got better.”  
  
tony swishes the wine in his glass around. “so you thought about it again.”  
  
pepper nods confirmation. “i thought about it again. but i was young, you were still wild, i was a personal assistant and i didn’t plan to be forever and i wasn’t about to let anyone think I slept my way to the top.”  
  
tony makes a mock noise of scandalization. “pepper potts would never sleep on the job.”  
  
she huffs and slaps his knee lightly. then her expression goes thoughtful. “there was a little bit, where i honestly thought it might happen.”  
  
“oh, yeah?” tony perks up, leans closer.  
  
she nods slowly. “after you came back from afghanastan. you were different. driven.”  
  
tony’s eyes drop to the couch cushions and he runs his fingers over the rim of his glass “that’s one word for it.”  
  
“we almost kissed, that night at the concert hall? when you left me.”  
  
tony props his chin on his hand. “you are never gonna let that go, are you?”  
  
she hides her smile by taking another sip of wine.  
  
“yes, we almost kissed _and then_ i abandoned you because i found out my tech was being used to murder innocent people in afghanistan.”  
  
“oh, sure, now you have an excuse.”  
  
“it’s not an excuse!”  
  
“it sounds a lot like an excuse.”  
  
“all i’m _saying_ is i got distracted.”  
  
“from kissing me.”  
  
“well, it’s not like you were jumping all over me, pep.”  
  
“i was your _pa._ i could have lost my _job._ there were reporters, my _career_ would have been ruined.”  
  
“anyway, that wasn’t the only time was it?” tony interrupts pointedly.  
  
and, thinking about it, pepper admits, “no.”  
  
“things were different after that.”  
  
“what you mean after you nearly died? and then kept from me that you were being slowly poisoned to death by the thing keeping you alive? which made you spiral wildly out of control? is that what you mean, when you say ‘things were different’?”  
  
tony stares at her. “so that’s still a thing you do?”  
  
she takes a sip from her wineglass, staring back at him over the rim.  
  
he narrows his eyes. “i think i almost kissed you on that rooftop. at the expo.”  
  
“i remember,” she says dryly. “and you _think?”_  
  
 _“_ hey _,_ it was a very stressful time, okay!”  
  
pepper rolls her eyes again, because it’s too painful to think about how incredibly inadequate that statement is, to think that she missed tony trying to tell her he was dying. “yes, tony,” she says. “i thought about it. it was something i tried not to think about, but i did. but we didn’t because you had to go jetting off to save steve, who turned out to be captain america, _the original!_ and you started dating, and that was that.”  
  
tony looks at her, his eyes dark and sincere. “i would have been lucky to wind up with you, pep.”  
  
she smiles and reaches out for his hand, squeezing when he slips it into her grasp. _“so_ lucky.” before he can balk at the joke, she leans forward and kisses his cheek. “we both would have been lucky.”


	5. Tony and Rhodey Get Up to Shenanigans at MIT

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** None
> 
>  **Tags:** Pranks, Tony  & Rhodey Friendship, MIT, Nerds, Alcohol, BESTIES, Banter, Macs vs PCs, Underaged Drinking

Tony can’t stop giggling.

Rhodey is embarrassed by it because _come on, Tony_ , you’re not even _drunk._

Which is kind of worse, because Tony is drunk 99% of the time, so the fact that he turns into a giggly mess when they’re playing juvenile pranks is just.  
  
Sigh.  
  
“Hey, sugarplum,” Tony says when the latest fit passes, “how’s it going?”  
  
Rhodey sighs. Why are they even friends? Tony is too ridiculous for words. “It’s going fine, Tony. I’ve got three more to do. What about you?”  
  
“Done.” Tony hops up on the table next to him, swinging his legs. He digs a flask out of his pocket and unscrews the cap, holding it out in offering. Rhodey gives him a look and pushes it back toward his pocket.  
  
Tony shrugs. “Your loss.” He slings back a mouthful, smacking his lips as he tucks the flask back into his pocket. “I thought you were a PC guy, what’s the hold up?”  
  
“I am a PC guy, why would I be anything else?”  
  
“Uh, because Macs rule, that’s why,” Tony retorts. “Why would you be a PC guy is the real question.”  
  
“Maybe because PCs are better at–”  
  
“Nothing, they’re better at nothing.”  
  
“–basically everything.”  
  
“Wrong. Booboo, I love you, you’re the apple of my eye, the center of my heart, but you are so wrong.”  
  
“We’re not having this discussion again, Tony.”  
  
“Just because you always lose, Mr. Pouty-Pants.”  
  
“I am not–” Rhodey huffs and reminds himself not to engage and finishes applying the settings on the last computer. “There,” he says. “Done.”  
  
Tony grins and jumps down off the table, spinning around to survey their work.  
  
Every last display in the room is showing the typical MIT background desktop, but the entire thing’s been flipped upside down. Rhodey grins to himself. Not the most brain-bending prank anyone’s ever played, but it should cause at least enough chaos to ruin the first class.  
  
“This is why PCs are shit,” Tony says, waving his hand.  
  
“Oh,” Rhodey retorts, rolling his eyes, “because you could do better?”  
  
Ten years later, Rhodey will eat those words in awe, when Tony introduces him to JARVIS.


	6. Thor Cosplays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** Mention of racism and blackface.
> 
> **Tags:** Thor, Cosplay, Star Trek, RPF, Worf, Michael Dorn, Tony Stark, Make-Up, Tony  & Thor Friendship, Conventions

It had taken much help from Tony, but Thor had gotten the applique placed and applied on his forehead. He’d wanted to be thorough and color his skin to match that of the warrior Worf whom he’d chosen to portray, but Tony had informed him in no uncertain terms that was ‘a big no-no’. When he’d asked why, Tony had sighed and set down his brush.  
  
“You’re gonna need a history lesson to get into that, which we will do when we get home, but– Long story short, the only people who would think it was a good costume and enjoy it are the same ones who don’t think that people who are born with that skin color are actually human.You go out in blackface–I’ll explain that later, too–they’ll think you’re one of them. That you think that people born with that skin color aren’t really people, just animals.”  
  
Thor is struck dumb by the very idea. “Then of course I would not– I will _never_ –”  
  
Tony smiles, though there is little amusement in it, and tilts his head. “Yeah, I know, Big Guy. Like I said, we’ll go over it. Not saying it’ll be comprehensive enough to keep you out of trouble completely, but it should help.”  
  
When they have finished preparations, they look into the mirror together and Tony grins, elbowing him in the ribs. “That’s what I’m talking about.”  
  
The final result is indeed spectacular.  
  
~  
  
At the con, Thor is proudly accepting compliments on his attire when a man steps out of the crowd. He is wearing a helmet fashioned after Thor’s own battle armor, and a blood red cape hangs from the broad shoulders. Thor is delighted.  
  
“You have come dressed as I, though I am not a character!” Thor exclaims, “I am deeply flattered.”  
  
The man smiles. “And you’re not dressed as me, but you are my character!”  
  
That is when Thor places the man’s face, different though it is without the ridged Klingon forehead. He feels as though his heart has skipped. Eagerly, he reaches out and clasps the man’s arm. “This is most unexpected and I– I am ashamed to say I find myself at a loss for words.”  
  
Dorn chuckles and says, “Well, I for one am just pleased to see Thor Odinson cosplaying a character I played.”  
  
“And I am doubly honored to know that you have chosen me. Your costume is very fine.”  
  
“As is yours.”  
  
It has been some time since Thor felt such boyish excitement. He attains a signature, which he is told is Midgardian custom when meeting admired celebrities. Dorn requests a photo, and within hours their smiling visages grace the front page of the con website.  
  
Tony declares it a complete success.


	7. Natasha is Forced to Tell The Team About Her Dyslexia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:
> 
> hi i dont know if you take prompts but if you do could you do dyslexic Nat who is all embarrassed when the team finds out and Clint helps or something just cute Clintasha please! (ps i love your writing!)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** Possible ableism from the author who is not dyslexic
> 
> **Tags:** Dyslexic!Natasha, Dyslexia, Natasha POV, Emotional Hurt/Comfort

“ _Widow, I need those instructions now!_ ”

Natasha’s throat is dry and her palms are sweating. She stares hard at the screen, but the letters keep shifting around, wavering and wobbling and changing places. Dammit, she needs to figure it out, but all of her usual techniques take too much time.

“ _Widow!”_

“I can’t do it!” she finally barks. “Someone else needs to— Someone needs to come to my position!”

“ _Aye, flying in,_ ” Thor replies.

“ _Are you injured?”_ Cap asks, concern leeching into his professional tone. Natasha feels sick with shame. He’s got less than a minute before his position is compromised and he’s worried about her.

“No,” she forces herself to reply because she will not blame her weakness on a lie. This proves she can’t keep her secret anymore without compromising her teammates. She values them too much to do that.

Thor bursts through the door, his hammer at the ready. When he sees that she’s alone, his expression turns confused, but he doesn’t ask. “Here, Thor,” she says, pointing at the monitor at her side. She shifts out of the way as he moves to bend over it.

She bites the inside of her cheek, eyes sparking with heat, as he reads out the instructions on the display effortlessly.

~ * ~

No one says a word about what happened until they’re back at the Tower.

Everyone but Tony enters through the glass doors, and the first thing Steve does is peel off his cowl, sighing with relief. Natasha smiles wanly; he hates that thing. She’s relieved that he’s safe and sound, despite her fuck up. “So,” he says, looking down at the cowl. “What happened out there, Natasha?”

Then they’re all looking at her, waiting.

Their scrutiny is uncomfortable and Natasha crosses her arms, presses her lips together until she feels the blood go out. She swallows, flicks a glance at Steve, because he deserves that. “I’m dyslexic,” she admits finally, voice flat.

Steve’s brow furrows in confusion, as does Thor’s, but she sees shock on Tony and Bruce’s faces. Clint doesn’t look surprised at all. They’ve been together long enough that he’s probably suspected as much. Bastard.

“Is that…an illness?” Steve asks, tentative. “Does Coulson know?”

For once, Tony is quiet, and Natasha’s grateful for that.

“Yes, he knows,” she says, staring hard at the floor. “He sends me briefing packets before the meetings and I have a junior agent assigned to review my paperwork. And no, it’s a learning disorder.”

She doesn’t go on, the words souring in her mouth, and Bruce steps in. “Dyslexia is like a glitch in the brain—it causes difficulty reading. Words appear broken, blurred, or shift around.”

Thor’s face smooths with comprehension. “Ah, I see. This explains much.”

“I’m sorry,” Natasha says stiffly. “It’s never been a problem before. I— Panicked, I guess.”

Steve shakes his head. “It’s not a problem, Nat. If you’ve gone this long and none of us have ever noticed, you’ve obviously got it under control. That being said, it might have been nice to know? I’m not gonna try and tell you what you are and aren’t capable of, but if there’s a problem you’ve gotta say so. Fair enough?”

Natasha nods, two quick jerks of her head.

Clint finally speaks up. “You know if you needed anything, wanted help or whatever, any of us would help you out, right? This isn’t the Red Room, Tash.” She grimaces. “No one’s gonna give it to you if you can’t do it.”

“Absolutely not,” Steve says, appalled, and, god, considering the thing’s he’s seen Steve’s world-view is still so pristine.

“I hope you’ve at least let JARVIS in on this,” Tony says and his tone is casual, but Natasha knows his intent is anything but. “He’s got resources out the wazoo. And like Cap said, you wanna keep this on the DL that’s your deal. All we need is a head’s up.”

Natasha smiles thinly and inclines her head to all of them. “Thank you.”

She’s lucky that her life has brought her here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope this is something like what you were wanting!! thank you so much for reading and reaching out! <3


	8. Steve and Sam Chat About What to Get the Man Who Has Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> forlorn-kumquat answered: Steve stressing about buying Tony b-day present because what do you get the guy who has everything?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** None
> 
> **Tags:** Sam  & Steve Friendship, Their Conversation is About Tony But He Isn't Present, Could Be Steve/Tony Or Not, Stressed!Steve, Artist!Steve, Sam is the Best, Fluff, Banter

Sam emerges into the common area one morning in the Tower, rubbing drowsily at his eyes, and stops dead in his tracks when he sees Steve. “What is going _on_ with you?”

He probably looks a mess. He’s been working in charcoal for the better part of the morning trying to get his head on right since running to Coney Island hadn’t helped. So maybe he’s been a little tense the last coupla weeks.

Sam raises his eyebrows when Steve doesn’t respond, and then points to the kitchen. “Come on. Talk to me.”

Steve sighs and lets his shoulders drop. “Yeah, okay.”

Sam crosses to the sink and wets a rag, which he tosses at Steve. “Spill.”

Head rolling forward, Steve sighs again, and starts wiping his hands. He’s somehow managed to get charcoal all the way up his arms. Sam checks the coffee pot while he waits for Steve and makes a pleased noise when he finds that it’s still half-full.

He’s pouring himself a cup when Steve finally says, “I’m…having some trouble.”

Sam looks at him, dead quiet. Then, sardonic as can be, says, “ _Really.”_

“Shut up,” Steve grumbles and throws the rag at his face.

“Man, I have not had my coffee yet, you can only expect so much from me. _What_ are you having trouble with?”

Steve shifts awkwardly and rubs at his forehead, because it’s embarrassing. “It’s just… Tony’s birthday is coming up.”

“Ohhh,” Sam says, nodding his head sagely. “You don’t know what to get him.”

That brings Steve’s head up in surprise. “Well—yeah. How did you know?”

Sam huffs, lifting the coffee cup to his lips. “Doesn’t take a rocket scientist. How the hell do you buy a birthday present for Tony Freakin’ Stark?”

“He’s got everything!” Steve exclaims and Sam nods along.

“It’s a dilemma.”

“Everything I come up with seems stupid, or outrageously expensive. I just want to get something he’ll like, nice, but not absurd.”

Sam glances back toward where Steve has his easel set up, the ground beneath it coated in a thin layer of black particles. “Can I give you some advice?”

“Yes,” Steve says, head dipping forward, “please, I need it. I’m getting desperate.”

“I think you’re overthinking this.”

Steve frowns, brow furrowing.

Sam casts a pointed look in the direction of the easel.

When Steve realizes what he’s implying, he pulls back. “What? No. I can’t, Sam. Are you crazy? Tony wouldn’t want—”

The eyeroll he gets in response is impressively dramatic. “Come on, use your brain, Rogers. That man loves you. Anything you give him will make him happy. You make something special for him? You’ll be lucky if that shit doesn’t end up in a museum somewhere, preserved for posterity.”

Steve feels himself blush and he crosses his arms. “You really think so,” he says dubiously.

“Man, I _know_ so.” He lifts the coffee mug and takes a pointed sip. “Do the drawing. Come see me if it doesn’t work out and I’ll sock him in the mouth for you.”

Steve’s lips twitch. “Yeah, okay. Thanks, Sam.”

“Anytime,” Sam says, and flashes him a sunny smile.


	9. Tony + Bruce + Genetically Engineered Monkeys = Meyhem

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dragonnan answered: Hulk, genetically engeneered monkeys, Tony without a suit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** None
> 
> **Tags:** Genetically Engineered Monkeys, Protective!Hulk, Suitless!Tony, Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Hulk, Explicit Language

“What is my life,” Tony says because he’s seen it on Tumblr and it seems like the right thing to say considering the circumstances.  
  
The monkeys prowling toward him across the plaza outside the museum where he and Bruce had been until just a few minutes ago let out a chorus of eerie yips and whoops that give him the heebie jeebies and flash their unnaturally large canines.  
  
“Ah, Bruce–” he says, and reaches back for his arm, turning his head, but keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the monkeys. Something about them isn’t right. Aside from how it kind of seems like they want to eat him.  
  
The arm his hand closes around is too broad for him to encompass and in spite of the inadvisable nature of it, he turns to look. The yelping gets wilder.  
  
Bruce is bigger than he should be, and growing greener by the second, his brows flat and low. “Get behind me, Tony,” he rumbles.  
  
A howl behind him makes Tony’s stomach shiver. He says, “Yeah, okay,” and grabs the glasses off Bruce’s face before ducking behind him. He watches with no little amount of trepidation as Bruce blossoms into the Hulk, Tony’s head tilting back and then back again to follow as he grows to the full twelve feet. Then Hulk roars and Tony winces, hands jerking up to cover his ears.

The monkeys go apeshit.

Pun intended.

Tony wobbles and nearly falls on his ass when Hulk stomps one giant foot and roars another warning at the pack of Planet of the Apes rejects.

Then one of them lunges, faster than either of them expect. It gets past Hulk’s hip and one gangly arm lashes out, the monkey shrieking. Tony yells, and then swears when he’s dragged forward by it, knees stinging as he falls.

Hulk bellows furiously and for the first time, Tony experiences a surge of sharp, bright fear. “Hulk!” he shouts, voice rising out of his control, “Wait, wait, okay, buddy—”

But he doesn’t have to worry about the Hulk tearing his arm off in an attempt to separate him from the monkey, because the monkey flings him toward the others.

Fortunately, Hulk is ready this time, and he snatches Tony up before he’s even fully hit the ground, pulling him in close to his chest like a rag doll.

“Careful!” Tony yells, scrabbling at his shoulder as he squeezes in the heat of the moment. There’s a terrifying second where he thinks he might wind up with broken legs, but the Hulk eases up, curling his whole body around Tony instead.

“Hold on,” he orders and the words vibrate through Tony’s entire being.

They take off into the city.


	10. Clint Fights Silly with Gag Arrows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lycordia said: *shifty eyes* Can I have Clint having to make do with gag arrows after April fools? (Either his idea or like Tony’s and he’s oblivious)
> 
> ~
> 
> OH HELL YEA

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** None
> 
>  **Tags:** Trick Arrows, Humor, April Fool's Day, Prank, Explicit Language

[](http://lycordia.tumblr.com/)

Clint doesn’t check his quiver before they go out to the call, which is a rookie goddamn mistake, and both Cap and Coulson are going to hand his ass to him on a platter when this is all over.

Worst thing is, he doesn’t even realize there’s an issue until he’s crouched on a fire escape ten minutes after their arrival. “I’ve got three bogies headed Northeast on Fifth.”

“ _Pull ‘em back, Hawkeye,”_ Cap orders.

“You got it,” he replies, and fires the first arrow. Halfway to the target the tip explodes into a huge, ruffled pink flower. “What the—“ he splutters.

And then it hits him.

April Fool’s, two days ago. Tony presenting him with a bouquet of “ _specially handcrafted arrows, just for you, Robin”._ Clint had nearly wet himself, cramming them into his quiver to head for the range.

His delight had been short-lived though, because as soon as the first one had exploded into a shower of glitter, he’d realized his mistake.

Clint lets out a string of colorful curses he learned from the carnies and scrabbles at his quiver, hoping that there’s at least _one_ of his real arrows.

“ _Hawkeye, what’s going on?”_

“Shit, shit, shit!” he snarls, because, nope, not a single one. Every one of them is marked with a sparkly banded color. “Stark, you lawless son of a bitch!”

“ _Hey, what’s with the unprovoked hostility?”_ Tony replies.

“All I’ve got are those goddamned trick arrows you made for April Fool’s!” Clint yells, and grabs one of the ones marked with yellow sparkles. He’s pretty sure that’s one of the glitter bomb ones.

He fires it to the sound of Tony delightedly squawking, “ _What?”_ over Cap’s more outraged version.

The arrow explodes, thankfully, into the predicted cloud of glitter and the three bogies skid to a stop, yelping and pawing at their eyes.

“ _What the hell do you mean trick arrows?”_ Cap demands.

“The first one I shot turned into a _flower_.”

Tony cackles with laughter.

“ _Iron Man this is not funny!”_ Cap snarls and Clint feels sorry for himself already. Stark’s gonna be on the chopping block with him, but this is gonna be a dressing down that smarts for weeks.

“ _No, no, it’s hilarious,”_ Tony says, earning himself a growl of anger from Steve. “ _You need an assist, Legolas?”_

“I don't— _no_ , I’m handling it,” he says. One of the three bogies is managing to get the glitter out of his eyes. Clint grabs another arrow and hopes it does something useful.

It pierces straight through the guy’s shoulder, and Clint is startled momentarily. “Hey, that one wasn’t a trick arrow, what the hell, it was marked.”

Then Natasha demands, “ _Why_ _is there a man down here who’s shoulder is singing Another One Bites the Dust?”_

Tony laughs so hard he nearly crashes into a building.


	11. Tony FM (AKA That Time Tony is Telepathic)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** Mention of male genitals?
> 
>  **Tags:** Telepathy, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Awkwardness, Humor, Insecure!Tony, Explicit Language

_So you can hear me?_ Tony thinks and everyone in the room shifts, looking wildly uncomfortable, even Romanova. _You can hear everything I think. Like this._

_And this._

_And this.  
_

“YES,” Natasha says, and glares.

Tony blinks and for a split-second, even his mental voice is quiet. Steve’s brow furrows.

“Tony?”

“That’s interesting,” Tony says, aloud and internally.

Bruce huffs a laugh. “And I thought Steve was the master of understatement.”

 _I can understate—_  “Well, you’re not wrong.” — _I am completely capable of understatement, I understate things all the time._ The others are starting to look pinched. _This is going to be very confusing for all of you._

“It already is,” Clint says, rubbing at his temples. “I’m gonna get a migraine. Pick one or the other, would you?”

 _I don’t exactly have control over the mental part—_ “So you want me to talk to you purely with my brain,” Tony says, pointing. _How do you think this works? Bruce, what do you know about brain waves, I need to know more. Can you see this picture?_ Tony imagines the suit.

“Yes,” Bruce says and Thor nods.

 _Cool,_ Tony thinks. _Not radio waves then. I wonder how long this is going to last. How soon can I get out of here, we need to do experiments, for science. How far does it go? Cap, run to the other side of the carrier, let’s test it._

Clint covers his eyes with the heels of his palms. “Christ, make it stop.”

 _This is way less awful than what I was expecting,_ Tony thinks, a little sarcastically and in Clint’s direction. He immediately regrets it. “I didn’t mean that,” he blurts, and his fucking inner-voice carries on, _Yeah, perfect, great, you’re gonna get an Oscar for that lie, oh my god, they can still hear you, moron, shut up shut up shut up.  
_

“No one will judge you for what transpires here today,” Thor says. He and Steve and Bruce are all blushing, a low dusky red, their eyes slipping around to look at anything but Tony. Clint is pretending he can’t hear anything and Natasha is frowning at him.

He groans and covers his head with a pillow.

_Somebody shoot me._

He imagines it happening, Natasha with a handgun, right through the pillow over his head.

“I’m not going to shoot you,” Natasha grits. “Not today, not ever.”

Tony freezes. _Is she_ hurt?

“I know you think I don’t like you—” _You don’t. FUCK. STOP TALKING, BRAIN._ “I _do_. And if anyone was going to shoot you it wouldn’t be me, so get that out of your head,” she snaps.

 _LalalalaI'mnotthinkingI'mnothinking you don’t_ act _like you like me I'mnothinkingI'mnot thinking—_

“Maybe that’s because you turn tail and run every time I enter a room.”

 _I do NOT_ , Tony thinks, but he’s halfway through the “not” when he actually starts thinking about that and remembering and realizing that he does in fact evacuate rooms when Natasha enters them unless there are other people in said room.

“Yeah,” Natasha says and he feels like shit.

_I didn’t…that'snotwhatImeant Ididn'trealize Igetkindafreakedoutwhenyou'rearound that'snotwhatImeant wellthisblowschunkychunks._

He wishes they’d all go away, then immediately takes it back, mostly because he knows it’d be useless, but partly because because this is terrible, maybe the worst thing that’s ever happened to him, and they’re his friends, his only friends, aside from Pepper and Rhodey, and they haven’t run screaming yet _maybe this will be the thing that does it._

A big, broad hand touches his shoulder and he flinches. “This will not be ‘the thing that does it’,” Thor says, voice low and reassuring. Tony hates it and he loves it. He hates it because it makes him feel stupid and condescended to and he loves it because it works. _Dammit, Thor_.

“I am sorry that you feel such conflict, Tony,” Thor says, “but I mean what I say.”

“Nobody’s going anywhere,” Steve agrees from behind him. “We’re with you, Tony.”

“For the love of god, SOMEBODY DISTRACT ME,” Tony demands, aloud, trying to drown out his crushingly hopeful, wanting inner-self.

“There’s been a lot less sex than I figured there’d be,” Clint blurts. That’s absurd enough, that Tony pulls the pillow off his head and stares over at him. _Sex? SEX? Of all the—I mean, I guess that’s not totally unfounded, I kind of have a reputation and I do_ think _about it,_ but even though the word is now sort of repeating like a drumbeat at the back of his thoughts interspersed with flashes of Pepper’s smile and weird nebulous flashes of ludicrous and unrealistically bendy couples in contorted positions, it’s not much more than that.

Steve chokes out a laugh. Tony scowls at him. “What are you laughing at Spangles?”

Tony imagines him naked in an attempt at vengeance.

Steve starts, and then folds, laughing even harder.

“Oh my god,” Bruce says, and his voice is laced with laughter as well.  
  
Tony realizes his mental picture of a nude Steve is strangely lacking in genitals. _Fuck._ He aggressively imagines an obscene dick into the image, so long it dangles to Steve’s knees.

“Oh god, COME ON,” Clint says, but he’s starting to laugh too and Steve is clutching at the bed trying to remain on his feet. Tears are starting to leak from his eyes. Tony’s irritation gives way quickly to pride; it’s not often that Steve laughs, especially not like this, and it makes him proud that he’s managed it.

“This is going to scar me for life, I know it,” Clint says, but he sounds fond, and Tony grins at him. He doesn’t even feel that terrible when he thinks, _thank God it was you guys._

Two minutes later, he Rick Rolls them all and Natasha shoves him off the bed, swearing in Russian.


	12. Steve Gets Himself Arrested

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> under-snow asked for: steve is roadtripping, gets arrested, & jarvis alerts tony to the situation tony is like really??? & then delight & and wants to gloat but instead just bails steve out & is like no questions asked but then it's a running gag every time steve is like I'M NOT THAT STRAIT LACED tony's is like i know you got arrested for _____ (different thing every time, with steve always going that's not whyyyy) after tony bails steve out but isn't a jerk about it, steve calls to thank him & that's what starts it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** Police
> 
> **Tags:** Arrested!Steve, Roadtrip, Humor, Tony  & Steve Friendship, Steve's Bike Is Named Betsy, Freshly Out of the Ice!Steve, Guardian Angel!Tony, Not Literally But Like He's Watching Steve's Back, All The Time, Explicit Language

Steve is somewhere in Nebraska when a police car lurches out of the cornfields onto the road ahead of him, lights spinning and siren whooping.

He frowns, laying on the break when the cruiser stops, blocking both lanes of traffic.

Betsy slows, the roar of her engine calming to a purr, and Steve puts a foot down to brace the bike, stopping just a couple yards from the car. An officer steps out, scowling at him, and Steve quickly removes his helmet, shaking out his hair. He swipes a hand through it, trying to make it presentable, and says, “Evening, Officer. Is everything all right?”

“Do you know how fast you were going?” the officer demands, mustache twitching. Behind him, Steve sees his partner’s head rise up over the roof of the car.

Steve blinks. “Uh, no, actually, I don’t.”

The officer’s expression grows a little more thunderous. “You were going a hundred and seventy-three miles per hour, son.”

Steve shakes his head. “That’s impossible. I would have noticed.” He frowns to himself. Wouldn’t he have?

The policeman’s head rears back. “Excuse you?”

Steve’s mouth drops open a little in surprise, his brows furrowing. “Hey, now, I’m not trying to make trouble, I just don’t think you’ve got this right. I would have noticed if I’d been going a hundred and seventy miles an hour.”

“Sir,” the officer on the opposite side of the car says, voice just above a whisper. “I think that’s—”

“Quiet, Rook,” he snaps over his shoulder, glowering at Steve. “Turn off the bike, leave the keys in the ignition, put the kickstand up, swing your right leg over the rear of the bike, keep your hands within plain view and turn to face me.”

“What?” Steve says. “Why? Look, I’m just passing through—”

Very deliberately, the officer places his hand on his sidearm. “I’m not going to ask again.”

Steve stares at him in astonishment, but he’s not looking to start anything, so he does as he’s told, following the instructions to the letter. “Sir, maybe I’m wrong, maybe the gauge is broken, but I don’t think—”

“You expect me to believe you didn’t notice the cornfields flying by going a hundred and seventy-three even if your gauge _is_ broken?”

“I—” A flush creeps up Steve’s cheeks as he realizes how little attention he’d been giving the mechanics of the drive.

“Have you been drinking, son?” the officer asks.

“No, of course not!” Steve exclaims.

The man looks skeptical, at best. “Then you don’t mind if we do a little test. Trapper, bring me the breathalyzer.”

Steve watches as the younger cop ducks down into the car, heart pounding a little harder in his chest. What the hell is a breathalyzer?

The young officer hands over a small gray box with a tube sticking out one side and Steve swallows, shifting. “I don’t think I’m comfortable letting you do this,” Steve says. The way the older man’s eyebrows crawl up his forehead isn’t a good sign.

“Oh, _really,_ ” he says.

“No, sir,” Steve says.

“He could do the roadside test, sir—”

Steve latches on to that. “The roadside test? I’ll do that. I’d just rather not—”

“Oh, no,” the officer says. “Roadside test can be _unreliable_. You can do the breathalyzer or spend the night in jail.”

Steve thinks about it. “I’ll take the jail time,” he blurts when the cop is less than a yard away.

That makes him stop. “Son, I’m pretty sure I’ll be hauling you in either way.”

“I’m not going to do the breathalyzer,” Steve insists. “Take me to jail.”

The officer huffs out an annoyed breath and says, nastily, “ _Fine._ Tagger, put him in the car.”

The young policeman scurries around the car, eyes wide. “I’m so sorry,” he whispers as he escorts Steve to the car, opening the cruiser door for him. Steve glances over his shoulder to see the older cop maneuvering Betsy over to the side of the road.

“What’s going to happen to my bike?” he asks, feeling a pang.

The other officer looks up and scowls. “Someone’ll come pick it up and take it to the impound. Tagger, you know the protocol, cuff him.”

“Oh, god,” the kid mutters, face flaming red. “Yes, sir,” he calls, louder. “I’m _really_ sorry about this,” he says again and gingerly takes Steve’s wrist and closes a metal cuff around it. Steve allows him to bring his hands together to where he can fit the other cuff in place. “Watch your head, sir,” he says, hand curling over Steve’s skull.

The kid closes the door very gently and Steve watches was the two men secure Betsy by the side of the road. He doesn’t like the idea of her sitting out here on this dark road all night, but what is he going to do? He doesn’t know what a breathalyzer is, let alone what it does, and he can’t risk the serum getting into the wrong hands.

The officers return to the car and climb in. As he starts up the engine, the older man mutters, “Dunno why you refused the breathalyzer, they’re just gonna make you do it back at the station.”

_Oh, god,_ Steve thinks.

 

-

 

By the time they arrive at the station Steve's phone is going off non-stop in his pocket.  
  
“Fish it out and turn the damn thing off!” the older officer snaps as Trapper helps Steve out of the car.  
  
“Yes, sir,” he says and shoots an apologetic look up at Steve, before slipping a hand into his pocket. It takes him a second to get his fingers around the slim device, but he manages, sliding it out and tapping at the screen.  
  
“It’s coded to my fingerprints,” Steve says and the kid holds it out.  
  
“Can you…?”  
  
Tony’s picture grins smarmily up at him and Steve feels a spike of relief. He touches his fingers to the screen and it unlocks, answering the call simultaneously.

“ _Steve, where the fuck are you?_ ” he hears, tinny over the tiny speakers.  
  
Trapper fumbles to bring the phone up to his ear. “Uh–hello? Hello?”  
  
“ _Who the hell is this?_ ” Steve hears Tony demand.  
  
Trapper’s face floods with color. “Uh. Officer Jay Trapper, sir—”  
  
“ _Offi–how did you get this phone? Where’s Steve? Is he okay?_ ”  
  
“I’m here, Tony,” Steve says, raising his voice and Trapper lifts the phone toward his mouth, looking alarmed. His face drains of color when he hears Tony’s name.

“Tagger! What the hell are you doing?“ the other officer demands and he squeaks, whirling around.  
  
” _Steve, what the hell is going on? JARVIS said you abandoned your bike on the middle of some godforsaken road in Nebraska.“_  
  
Steve flushes. “Um. Well—”  
  
“Are you on the _phone?_ Tagger, what in God’s name do you think you’re doing?”  
  
“I didn’t mean to, sir, it just answered when he unlocked it—”  
  
The older officer snatches the phone out of his hand. “Who is this?” he demands. There’s a slight pause and then, “This is Officer Richard Bronson of the Nebraska State Patrol, now _who—_ ”  
  
He falls silent and Steve prays Tony is using his quicksilver tongue for good, for once. Bronson’s face stiffens, until eventually he grits out, “He’s been arrested for resisting an officer.”  
  
Steve winces when he hears: “ _WHAT? RESISTING—”  
  
_ Then he frowns at the sound of uproarious laughter, Bronson’s mouth twisting into an ugly scowl. “I don’t see what’s funny about this, he was driving drunk, speeding down the road at a hundred and seventy like he owned the goddamned state—”  
  
Tony’s laughter grows even more hysterical. “ _Drunk?!”  
  
_ “Mister Stark, I don’t know how you know this man—”  
  
“ _That man is Captain Fucking America, Officer. And he’s sober as sober gets, I guarantee it—he_ can’t _get drunk. As in, is incapable.”  
  
_ Bronson blinks, scowl slowly falling away and after a few long seconds, his eyes flick over to Steve. Steve does his best to look appropriately apologetic. Bronson’s mouth drops open. “Mary mother of God.”  
  
Tony starts laughing again. “ _Don’t worry about it. I’ll pay his bail. I haven’t laughed so hard in years.”_


	13. College!AU Avengers Play During Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:
> 
> I don't know if you take prompts but its starting to turn to fall here and I was wondering if you could do an AU fic where the Avengers are in college and they take trays from the cafeteria and slide down the leaves on the hill. A simple fall fic. You don't have to do it if you don't want to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** None
> 
> **Tags:** Fall, Avengers Ensemble, Banter, Humor, College AU

“All right, I got ‘em!” Clint yells, and comes skidding over the grass. He flings several cafeteria trays like Frisbees. Steve catches his and manages to grab Tony’s just before it smacks him in the face. Natasha catches hers, too, but Thor and Bruce both wind up getting clipped.

“Goddammit, Clint!” Bruce snarls, face rapidly turning red.

“Whoops, sorry, sorry!”

Bruce comes stomping toward him brandishing the tray and Clint takes off, throwing the tray down and hopping on to it. He skims down the hill well ahead of Bruce and Steve smiles and shakes his head, sitting back.

Fall has finally set in and the quad is covered in a thick layer of golden yellow and fiery orange leaves. At mid-afternoon the weather’s perfect, but by dusk they’ll need scarves and sweaters.

“Come on, Rogers,” Tony says, elbowing Steve as he climbs to his feet. “Let’s have some fun.”

Steve grins. “Oh, I’m just hanging back so I can watch you guys go first. I wouldn’t want to miss anything.”

“Oh, ha ha,” Tony drawls. Then Thor goes whipping past, shouting at the top of his lungs and Tony grins, crowing as he leaps onto his own tray. Steve’s decision to wait pays off, because Tony’s tray catches on something a third of the way down and he goes flying, tumbling head over heels. Steve almost laughs himself sick and he can hear Tony yelling curses up at him from the bottom of the hill.

“Let’s go, it’s our turn,” Natasha says, when his laughter has died down to giggles and she holds out her hand to help him up. She helps lever him to his feet and they push off at the same time, still holding hands. They go flying past Tony and Steve starts laughing all over again.

When they’ve worn themselves out and the sun has started to set, the six of them will head over to the coffee shop on campus for Pumpkin Spice lattes and Pumpkin scones. Clint will bitch about the Pumpkinvasion and Tony will start rambling about the mechanical suit he’s building for his Halloween costume. They’ll make plans and do their homework and Bruce will make them take the trays back to the cafeteria, and Steve can’t imagine his life being any better than this.


	14. Natasha Has a Panic Attack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:
> 
> could you write one where Nat has a bad panic attack (like cant breathe, hallucinating, shaking and all that) and the team dont know how to help and she is terrified out of her mind and they try to help but she cant even go near them without flipping out and then Clint gets back from the store or a mission or somewhere and he is the only person who can calm her down and help her wow that was long your great btw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally!!! here is your fic anon, i hope you like it!! :DDD
> 
> **Warnings:** Panic Attack
> 
> **Tags:** Natasha Romanova, Panic Attack, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Clint  & Natasha Friendship, Natasha & The Avengers Friendship

It comes on without warning, as panic attacks are wont to do.

Natasha hasn’t had one in months, so she’s expecting it even less than normal. She’s in the living room on the arm chair nearest the kitchen flipping through a magazine while Thor and Steve play with the Wii. Bruce walks past her, cradling a cup of tea and her chest constricts.

Her heart lurches and starts to pound and she thinks, _Oh, god, no._

But within seconds she can’t breathe and her fingers clench, crumpling the magazine. _There’s nothing you can do, you’re going to die, can’t talk yourself out of this, Romanova._

She hears her breaths start to whistle.

Oh, god, she can’t _breathe._

“Natasha?” someone says, uncertain. She isn’t sure who. _Please, please, someone help me, I’m dying._ There’s pressure on her chest like the fist of the Hulk, squeezing her lungs and forcing out all the air.

“Please,” she whimpers.

A hand touches her shoulder and a cry tears from her throat. “ _No!”_ she shrieks. “Don’t touch me!” She doesn’t know them, can’t trust them, she’s dying, she’s dying, no one can help her, but she doesn’t _want_ to die. God, it’s just a _panic_ attack, she tries to tell herself, but that only makes it worse.

She should be able to deal with this, but she can’t. There aren’t any words, no tricks to make it stop. Her heart will give under the strain and there’s nothing she can do.

Her hands are shaking, even clamped down around the arms of the chair the way they are. There are voices all around her, but her vision has tunneled so that she can hardly make out shapes in front of her, sound muffled by the roar in her ears.

_I don’t want to die like this._

Something icy cold and wet hits the back of her neck and she gasps, her body arching and locking up. The cold is so bright and sharp that it clears her vision a little. “Tasha,” she hears, “Tasha, can you hear me?”

“Clint?” she breathes, and then sees him there in front of her, kneeling.

“Yeah, it’s me. You feel that?” he asks, and the wet cloth on the back of her neck shifts, a rivulet of cold water trickling down her spine. She shudders and reaches out, grasping at Clint’s shoulders.

“I can’t breathe,” she bleats, feeling the way her chest constricts as she tries to get the words out, the way her head swims. “Clint, I can’t b-breathe, I’m going to d-d-die.”

“No,” he says firmly. “You’re not. You know you’re having a panic attack, right?”

She claws at the skin bared by the collar of his shirt. He squeezes the cloth and more water trickles down her back. “Yes,” she chokes.

“What were you doing when it started?” he asks.

“I— I was— R-reading a magazine.”

“Okay, great. What happened first? What symptom came on first?”

She swallows hard around the slick lump of fear in her throat. “Tightness in my chest.”

“Then what?”

“My heart—racing. I couldn’t— I can’t _breathe._ ” She can feel tears pricking at her eyes; her chest is so tight like Hulk is sitting on her and she can’t get enough breath, she’s going to pass out.

“Yes, you can,” Clint says, calm and firm. “Come on, do it with me. Breathe. In…” He counts and she takes a breath in even though it feels like her chest refuses to expand. “Hold it.” He counts again. “Now out.” Another count. “There you go, you’re breathing. You can’t trust your body right now, right?”

She nods jerkily. The panic attack makes everything wrong, makes it impossible to trust her own senses. She’s not dying, but she _feels_ like it.

“You trust me though.” He counts again and Natasha closes her eyes and breathes, fingers wrapped so tight around his collar that she can feel the strain in her joints.

“Yes,” she whispers.

Clint gingerly lays a palm over her heart. “Well, I can see you breathing. You’re pale, but your eyes and nose are red. No blue skin anywhere. Breathe again. You know what that means?”

Natasha exhales, slow and shaky. “Oxygen in my blood.”

“Yep,” he agrees. “So I can see you breathing. You’re not gonna die. Right?”

“I’m not going to die,” she repeats.

The worst of the attack passes. Her chest is still tight, her heart still beating too fast, and there’s still a tingle of fear all along her shoulders down into the blades, but she knows the attack is resolving.

Clint looks up at her, thumb stroking back and forth over her knee. “You got it?” he asks.

She nods jerkily and wipes the back of her wrist across her upper lip, where sweat is pooling.

He smiles. “Okay. I’m gonna have Steve bring you some tea, huh?”

“Okay,” she all but whispers, and glances around the room, realizing with a swell of embarrassment that the Avengers are all standing in a loose circle around them, close to the walls—as far away from her as they can get. She twitches when Steve approaches from her left, even though he’s moving slow, his shoulders hunched.

Clint catches his eye and Steve sinks onto one knee before he offers her the mug in his hands. “Hey, Nat,” he says softly, “Bruce picked this out. He said it’d help.”

She nods once and accepts the mug with a terse, “Thank you.” She looks over at Bruce and nods to him as well. He smiles wanly back.

“I’m sorry,” she says, staring down at Clint’s hands.

“Nothing to be sorry about,” Tony says from the kitchen doorway, his arms crossed over his chest. He looks a little pale and sweaty himself and she remembers: he has them, too.

She twists her lips into a smile and inhales. She’s safe.

Finally, she can breathe again.


	15. Pepper and Rhodey Counsel Tony Because He Feels Like a Cradle Robber

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk guys I saw a parks and rec gifset and this happened
> 
> –  
>  **Warnings:** None, except one of the characters is in a romantic relationship and the conversation is about said romantic relationship. So this is not a absolutely-zero-romance fic.
> 
>  **Tags:** James "Rhodey" Rhodes  & Tony Stark, Pepper Potts & Tony Stark, Age, Relationships, Romantic Relationships, Supportive Friendships, Insecure Tony, Background Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

“Pepper!” Tony yells, shoving his way into her apartment. “Pepper, I’m having a crisis. I’m freaking out. I'm—I'm—”

He stops in his tracks in the entryway to her dining room and blinks. “Rhodey?”

Rhodey turns from where he’s sitting chatting with Pepper and smiles, “Hey, Tones.”

“You didn’t tell me you were going to be here!” Tony says, and moves forward to wrap him in a hug. Rhodey smiles into his shoulder.

“I thought it’d be a nice surprise.”

“Well, you weren’t wrong,” Tony says and then pulls back, gripping his shoulders tight. “You can tell me what the hell to do about this crisis.”

Pepper sighs and rolls her eyes. “Why do I suspect this isn’t so much a crisis as it is an overreaction?”

“Hey. I take offense at that.” Then he sits down and stares beseechingly at his two best friends. “Guys, I’m losing it a little bit over this, you gotta help me.”

“You can’t lose what you didn’t have to begin with,” Rhodey says and pats his arm. “But go on. Tell us what this terrible crisis is.”

The problem is too pressing for Tony to even spare the time to glare at Rhodey for that. “Steve is thirty. _Thirty._ I can’t date him! It’s like dating an infant! Our age gap is older than he is!”

Neither of them reacts like this is the emergency situation it is. He is a _pervert._ How can they be so calm?!

Rhodey gives him a puzzled look. “Tones, that’s only fifteen years.”

“Besides isn’t he the pervert? He’s over a hundred technically,” Pepper muses. Like this is some kind of— _brain_ _bender._

“He didn’t experience the seventy in the ice, those don’t count,” Tony says impatiently. “He hasn’t experienced that much. We are at vastly different places experience-wise.”

Pepper’s eyebrows crawl up her forehead. “What?” she says, with mock astonishment. “You _are?_ You mean the man who grew up during the Depression and went to war at the beginning of the century and the man who grew up as a weapons mogul’s son in the seventies and eighties have had different _experiences?_ Rhodey, did you hear that?”

“Yeah, you know, now that you point that out, I see what you mean. I mean, he draws and you engineer stuff. You know science, and he knows tactics. I mean, god, he likes hot sauce on his cheeseburgers.”

“Oh my god, really?” Pepper says and looks at Tony with faux-sympathetic eyes. “How have you made it this long?”

Tony scowls at both of them. “I see what you’re doing and it’s very cute, but you are _missing the point.”_

Pepper huffs, exasperated and impatient. “No, Tony, _you_ are missing the point. You understand that Steve is a complete human being, with desires and wishes of his own, with life experiences different than your own, with his own opinions and likes and dislikes, do you not?”

“…yes,” Tony agrees, knowing he’s being led into a trap.

“And Steve understands that about you, does he not? He respects your right to choose what to do with your life and your body, no matter how ludicrous those choices may be?”

“The nights when he’s not carrying me out of the lab, yes,” Tony mutters.

“Then what is the problem? Who _cares_ how old either of you is. You’re both adults. You are capable of consenting and you respect one another as competent human beings. That’s all that matters.”

“But,” Tony protests, and glances down at his hands, runs his thumbnail over the thin lines of oil trapped in the creases of his fingers. “He’s still growing up.”

Rhodey squeezes his knee. “Buddy— _so are you_. That’s not the kind of thing that just up and stops. You’ll always be growing up and learning new stuff. His stuff will be different than your stuff, but that’s not a bad thing.”

“God willing, you’ll both learn from each other how to be less pig-headed,” Pepper grumbles.

Tony takes a shaky breath. “Right. Okay. So. So I’m not making a huge mistake.” He glances up at them, just for a second, and both their expressions are soft.

“No, Tony,” Rhodey assures him, squeezing his arm. “You’re doing good. Let the good thing happen to you.”

Tony smiles weakly and scooches his chair forward to drag both of them into a hug. “I’ll try.”


	16. Natasha Has a Nightmare and Steve Sits With Her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings:** None
> 
> **Tags:** Nightmares, Natasha  & Steve Friendship, Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Cuddling, Awkward!Steve

Natasha jerks awake, fingers clawing at the sheets, her heart hammering against her chest. The cold voices she remembers from when she was a girl cling to her consciousness like cobwebs. She shakes her head and drags herself upright, trying to knock the dream loose.

It still feels real, like she has one foot in the dream and one in reality, and she blinks her eyes wide, reminding herself that what she sees is not what was there in the dream. She’s awake, in the Tower, nowhere near the Red Room.

Then a pale oval of a face emerges out of the darkness and she reacts before she even knows what she’s doing, leaping back, a cry tearing itself from her throat. The gun trembles slightly as she squares it and barks, “Who the hell are you?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she hears, the voice pitched low, trying to calm her. She can see the pale shape of arms coming up in surrender and she blinks again, trying to make her eyes adjust. “It’s just me.”

All at once, Natasha recognizes Steve’s voice, his concerned expression.

She lets out a shaky breath, dropping the gun. “I was going to _shoot_ you.”

Steve’s mouth pulls into a crooked smile, his hands staying up by his ears. “Well, you didn’t, so thanks for that.”

Swiping the back of her wrist over where sweat has started to collect on her upper lip, she makes sure the safety is still on and sets the gun on her bedside table. There’s sweat on the back of her neck, under her arms, too, and it’s rapidly cooling, enough to make her shiver.

“You okay?” Steve asks, not pitying or condescending, just a kind, honest question.

She shrugs, wrapping her arms around herself. “As I ever am.”

Steve grimaces, a sympathetic expression, and she knows he’s been here himself. “Anything I can do?”

Natasha stares at her bedclothes for a long time, her stomach churning. _Exposing your weaknesses,_ a voice whispers in her ear and she waves it away, looks up at Steve, who’s still looking at her, patient as he waits for the answer.

She tilts her head to draw his attention to the space beside her on the bed. “Sit with me?”

Steve stares at her for an instant too long, the only indication he’s surprised, and then says, “Yeah, I can— Sure, of course.”

He crosses the room, hands awkwardly at his sides, like he wants to put them in pockets that aren’t there. He sits down gingerly and is half on, half off when Natasha flicks a finger to direct him up against the headboard. Steve follows the request, shuffling back to lean against it. He looks up at her expectantly when he’s situated.

Natasha gives him a look. “Don’t make this weird.”

“I never make things weird,” he says, with a completely straight face, and she snorts, sliding into place against his side. She’s shivering and he’s hot all over, radiating it from every inch. It’s a lot easier than expected to curl up against him.

“Just put your hand on my hip,” she tells him, when his hand goes up and doesn’t come back down.

He does, relaxing a little bit at a time.

“God, you’re so warm,” she says, and presses her face into his shoulder.

“Glad I can be your hot water bottle,” he replies wryly.

“They talk less.”

Steve shifts like he’s going to get up. “I can just go you know—”

“Don’t you dare,” she says, getting her fingers hooked into his t-shirt and he huffs a laugh.

“A little appreciation would be nice then.”

After that they’re quiet and Natasha matches her breathing to the slow, steady _lub-dub_ of Steve’s heartbeat. He’s solid and warm and she hasn’t trusted anyone so readily since she met Nick. She envies how steady his footing seems to be. She wants that steadiness for herself.

“What were you doing down here anyway?” she asks, the thought suddenly occurring to her. Steve blushes, and she knows it because she can feel the heat of it seeping through his shirt. “Ah,” he says, and reaches up to scrub at his hair, “I, uh, was having trouble sleeping myself.”

Natasha smiles at the mental image of him creeping down here to wake her up, or, no, probably more likely he’d sit in the hallway outside her room, not wanting to bother her, but comforted by the presence of another person anyway. “Feel better?”

“Yeah,” he says quietly, “yeah, I think I do. You?”

“Mhm. Thanks.”

“That’s what friends are for, right?” he says and the words smear around a yawn. A warm fullness starts to push at the inside edges of Natasha’s chest.

“Yeah,” she murmurs back, “that’s what friends are for.”


	17. The Arc Reactor Gets Infected and the Avengers Care for Tony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> screwsfalloutt said: If you were so inclined to write a sick!tony fic I would probs shed some tears.

The skin around the arc reactor has to be pretty carefully looked after, and following a particularly hectic week, Tony looks down and finds the edges are inflamed, which explains why his chest aches more than usual.

“Shit,” he sighs.

He’s so tired, he ends up calling everyone, instead of just Bruce, the way he means to.

“Oh, uh, hi,” he says, when they start trooping in, expectant looks on their faces. “Shit, I sent out an all-call didn’t I.”

Steve gives him a look, eyebrows creeping up his forehead. “You didn’t mean to assemble?”

“Shit,” Tony says again. “No.”

Funny enough, it’s Clint who notices first. “What’s going on with that?” he asks, pointing at the arc reactor. Embarrassed, Tony considers just yanking down his shirt until he can get rid of them, but Sam’s eyes land on it before he can make a decision either way and his eyes go wide.

“Is that infected?”

“I don’t know,” Tony admits. “I was gonna call Bruce and have him help me with some tests."

Bruce makes a noise of exasperation. “Tony, how many times do I have to tell you. I’m not a good substitute for one of the numerous doctors we have here in the Tower—”

“Not for the arc reactor,” Tony says, and that’s that.

Sam kneels down on the floor in front of him to get a better look. He’s careful not to touch without getting permission first and Tony’s painfully grateful for it. He frowns. “It doesn’t look like there’s any pus or anything, but it’s definitely inflamed. Bruce, you know enough to do a swab. Let’s do that and get it tested.”

They don’t have to wait that long though, because just a few hours after they shuffle him off to bed, Tony wakes himself up coughing.

Natasha, who’s sitting by the window painting her nails, quickly puts the polish aside and walks over on her heels. She feels his forehead and says, “Yikes, your temperature’s definitely up.”

Tony just groans, because no shit. His head is throbbing and he aches all over. His skin is uncomfortable. Particularly the skin around the arc reactor, which is redder and more inflamed than before. He ends up stripping out of his shirt because the fabric against it is unbearable.

He spends awhile tossing and turning, trying to get comfortable, and only seems to get more miserable. Natasha sings something throaty in Russian and cards her fingers through his hair for awhile. That’s almost nice.

Then Sam comes with Bruce and they make worried faces and end up making him lie flat on his back until that exacerbates the coughing. Then they prop him up with a bunch of pillows and lay cool cloths over the angry red skin around the arc reactor. That is not nice. He sleeps for awhile.

When he wakes up, Natasha’s gone and Steve’s sitting in the bed next to him, doodling in his sketchpad. “Hey,” he says, softly, when he sees Tony’s awake. “How are you feeling?”

“Like roadkill,” Tony rasps. His voice sounds horrific.

“Hungry roadkill?” Steve asks hopefully.

Tony shakes his head. The thought of trying to eat anything makes him queasy. Steve nods, disappointed, but not willing to force the issue. He holds out a sippy cup—like a real, actual sippy cup with a straw, unbelievable. “Gatorade,” he says, “mixed with a little Sprite. You need to stay hydrated and have something in you to fight this off.”

Tony just moans something in response, but he takes a sip out of the cup. The first few are actually good, then it seems to sour in his mouth and he pushes the cup away.

Thor and then Clint are there, the next few times he wakes up, and as shitty as he feels, it’s nice to come out of it and have one of his teammates there, waiting with crackers and more of the Gatorade/Sprite concoction to ply him with. He feels awful, but a small part of him kind of enjoys it, the way they let him curl up around them and the way they’ve got it all organized to make sure there’s always someone there to take care of him. And it stays that way until he starts to improve and gets too antsy to stay in bed anymore.

He goes back to his routine, except he keeps falling asleep mid-task and waking up to find he’s moved onto the nearest couch, his head pillowed in one of his teammates’ laps.

It’s a relief, when two weeks later he hasn’t fallen asleep in the middle of the afternoon two days in a row and Sam takes a look at his chest and says, “Looks like the infection’s all gone. Glad we never had to deal with it getting to your heart.”

“Yeah, that would have been a bitch,” Tony says and pulls his shirt back down. He looks around at all of them, because of course they’re here, hovering like the mother hens they’ve been since that first accidental call, and then glances down at his hands. “Thanks,” he says, and waves a hand absently. “For, you know.”

“We are your shieldbrothers,” Thor says, “we would be here for you in your time of need.”

Tony smiles down at his own interlocked hands. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, that’s… Thanks,” he repeats, and this time, he looks at each of them in turn, steady and sure.

It’s nice to know there’s someone looking out for him.


	18. (Angst) Tony Grieves JARVIS AOU Tag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> set near the end of AOU so there are spoilers!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Grief, Mourning, Tony Stark, JARVIS, Steve Rogers, Crying!Tony, AOU Tag, Steve  & Tony Friendship
> 
>  **Warnings:** Character Death

It hits Tony after.

While everything’s going on, it’s easy to put it aside, to forget. He has to figure out how to make this right, how to keep his friends alive. He doesn’t have time to dwell on what’s happened.

But then the refugees have been divvied up around the helicarrier and the Avengers have all traded their uniforms for street clothes and gathered in the mess for a well-deserved meal.

The adrenaline rush is waning and the world is saved and Tony can breathe. Can think.

The Vision has made himself up a dark hoodie an some dark skinny jeans and he sits down to join them. “I don’t eat, but I would like the company,” he says and that’s JARVIS.

That’s JARVIS’ voice.

JARVIS—gone, deleted, assimilated.

Tony abruptly puts down his sandwich, his gorge rising.

“I’m gonna—” he points and stands without further explanation. A few pairs of eyes follow his movement, but everybody’s dead tired and starving so nobody asks.

Tony lurches out into the hall where he collapses, sliding down against the wall as a sob hitches in his throat.

JARVIS is gone.

JARVIS, his best friend, confidante, one of the best things he’s ever done in a long, storied history of terrible decisions and poor life choices, he’s gone, dead because of another of Tony’s terrible decisions.

Tony remembers the sight of all his friends laid out in front of him, bloodied and motionless and panic wells up alongside the despair all over again. He can’t protect them, he couldn’t even protect JARVIS. Destroyed him with his own two hands. They’re all going to die because Tony _means well_.

 _You could have saved me if you hadn’t been so foolhardy,_ JARVIS whispers at the back of his mind.

He doesn’t even realize he’s making noise until he hears Steve say, “Tony? Tony, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

Tony shakes his head, hands clamped over his mouth, but the noises are still audible, some twisted hybrid of whimpers and sobs.

“Jesus, Tony,” Steve breathes, “you don’t have to lie. You don’t have to be okay. The last few days have been…terrible.” He crouches down and cups Tony’s head, fingers tangling in his hair and Tony shudders. “Shh,” he murmurs, drawing Tony forward, into the circle of his arms. “Shh. What is it? What’s wrong? We did good today, you know that, right?”

“Not good enough.” Tony chokes, chest heaving. Every breath is too sharp, too shallow. “It’s my fault. It’s my fault he’s gone, I killed him.” He shakes his head against Steve’s shoulder and feels tears start to streak down his cheeks. “I killed JARVIS.”

Steve hesitates, then says, “But you can rebuild him, can’t you?”

“No,” Tony snarls and shoves Steve back, pushes until he overbalances and ends up sprawled on his ass. “H-he wasn't—JARVIS wasn’t a true AI, but he was as goddamn close as it gets. Even if I cobbled together the backups it wouldn’t be the same— _he_ wouldn’t be the same.”

His anger burns out as quickly as it had come and he closes his eyes, still more tears squeezing out from between his eyelids. He deflates, burying his face in his hands. Finally, he croaks, “I just wanted to make us safe.”

Steve edges closer again, sitting next to Tony, close enough their shoulders touch. “Being alive isn’t safe, Tony,” he says quietly. “People die. That’s how it is.”

Tony feels his forehead crumple. “But they don't—” His lip trembles, voice breaking. “—they don’t have to die like this. Because of _me_.” He jabs at his chest with a shaking hand and the tears well up again.

“You weren’t the only one responsible, Tony,” Steve says. “You didn’t do this on your own. That’s why we need to work together. As a team. We all make bad choices. But together we might be able to prevent them from ending up like this.”

“What if I won’t listen?” Tony asks.

Steve smiles, soft and crooked. “Then I’ll make you.”

Tony huffs. “I’m still waiting to see that dark side.”

The smile fades and Steve looks down at his lap. “I’ll tell you about it sometime. Maybe then you’ll believe me when I say we all make bad choices.”

They’re quiet for awhile and Tony tries to discreetly clean up a little, wiping away snot and tears, embarrassment burning at the back of his neck.

“I’m sorry,” Steve murmurs eventually. When Tony looks at him askance, he adds, “That you lost your friend.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, and swallows the lump in his throat, fingers curling around the ones Steve has laced with his. “Me too.”


	19. Steve Thinks He's Bisexual and Bucky's Fine With That

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i thought maybe this would become a fic at some point but i don’t think it is going to

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Bisexual!Steve, Steve  & Bucky Friendship, Coming Out, Sleep Overs, Coming of Age, Slice of Life, Mention of Steve's Romantic and/or Sexual Interests, Kid Fic, Kind of
> 
> **Warnings:** None

He and Bucky had been lying awake one night when they were kids—twelve Steve thinks—trading secrets. That had been the first time Steve had ever admitted it aloud.

“Sometimes,” he’d whispered, with his heart in his throat and his eyes on the bar of moonlight across the ceiling, “sometimes I think I’ve got a crush on one of the fellas.”

Bucky had pushed up onto his elbow and gawked at Steve, wide-eyed, until Steve’s face felt so hot it could’ve set a fire. “Steve,” he’d said, real slow, “you’ve got a crush on me?”

And Steve had been so relieved and startled and outraged that he’d shoved Bucky and almost shouted, “No, you jerk, on Billy Rider!”

“You picked Billy over me?”

“Shut up, I didn’t pick him, Buck, that’s not how it—”

Bucky had just grinned at him and flopped down, propping his head on his hand, leaning on his elbow. “I’m with you all the way, Steve. Don’t you worry.”

And Steve had felt safe. Bucky never broke his promises.

Later, when they were older, Bucky would ask after he bumbled through an attempt to ask Marie McCloud on a date, “So you still like girls, huh?”

Steve had smiled shyly and shrugged. “Guess I’m not too discriminating, is all.”


	20. Natasha and Bucky Discuss Steve's Love Life (to His Dismay)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:
> 
> Hey, I'm sorry you're feeling shitty. You are still amazing! I pretty much knew my day was going to be rough when i missed my first 2 alarms, and it only got worse. if you're still doing "who had a shitty day?" prompts could you do something with bucky, or nat, and steve. idc what. but, um, thanks. and you're awesome.  
> \--  
> thank you <333 ouchhhh that’s a horrible way to start a day. I hope today was better for you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Fluff, Humor, Friendship, Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes, Natasha Romanova, Matchmaker!Natasha, mention of Steve/Tony, They're Chatting About Steve's Love Life But the Romance Isn't the Focus
> 
> **Warnings:** None

“Was he always this difficult to fix up on a date?” Natasha asks, drawing Bucky’s hair up into a ponytail on top of his head.

“I’m right here,” Steve says with exasperation.

“Yes,” Bucky replies, hand held up where she can reach it, an assortment of hairbands encircling his fingers. “I musta tried it a million times. He always had a goddamn excuse for why it wouldn’t work out.”

“I did not!” Steve says indignantly.

“'Didja see the way she looked at me, Buck’, ‘she only had eyes for you, Buck’, ‘she never gave me the time of day, Buck’, 'I don’t date bullies, Buck’. Nobody was good enough for Steve. Then in walks Peggy Carter and bam. Game over. Guess he knew what he wanted after all.”

Natasha sees Steve’s expression soften and she looks up at him as she smooths Bucky’s hair into a perfect ponytail, finding all the lumps and fingering them flat. “So he requires a more hands-off approach is what you’re saying.”

Bucky huffs. “The more you push, the more he’ll fight. Anyway, he’s already sweet on someone.”

Steve starts to flush strawberry pink and Natasha raises an eyebrow. “Oh is he? Are you going to share with the class, Steve?”

“I hate that you two know each other,” Steve says, scrubbing a hand over his face, like he might be able to purge the blush if he rubs hard enough.

“No you don’t,” Natasha says, and grins widely. “You actually love it. You’re happy Bucky’s making friends and you like seeing me be normal. You love that we hit it off. Who is it? Who’s the lucky girl?”

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose and says, “It’s not a girl.” Then he freezes, going a little deer in the headlights. “Um.”

Natasha leans forward over Bucky’s shoulder, and demands, “What? Who? Steve, you didn’t tell me you were bisexual the whole time I was trying to set you up with someone?!”

He’s fire-engine red now, stammering and stuttering and not making any sense whatsoever.

“It’s Stark,” Bucky says finally and Steve’s eyes go wide.

“You know?” he squeaks.

Bucky laughs, a low, rasping sound that makes the back of Natasha’s neck tingle. “Yeah, punk, you think I don’t know what you look like when you’ve hung a lantern?”

“Oh, that’s perfect,” Natasha says delighted. “He’s been side-eyeing you for months! I thought I was going to have to deal with his inadequacy issues in perpetuity.”

“Wait,” Steve says, “hang on, he has?”

Natasha just sighs. “No wonder Carter made the first move.”

“Amen to that,” Bucky says.


	21. (Angst) Tony Mourns JARVIS With DUM-E

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi dont know if you're still doing prompts, if not ignore this. I didnt really have a shitty day so much as a nothing at all went right day. If you could, something involving Tony and Dum-e? Thank you!  
> \--  
> i’m sorry that’s tough enough. also i’m sorry about this ficlet. it was supposed to be a sweet intimate moment between tony and dum-e and then it turned into a tag for aou
> 
>  
> 
> **warning for sad things to follow**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Grief, Mourning, Character Death, AOU Tag, Angst, Tony Stark, DUM-E, Crying!Tony
> 
> **Warnings:** Off-Screen Character Death

It’s dark when Tony gets back to the Tower, save for the glow emanating from the streets below outside the windows and the occasional blinking light from the electronics. He’s tired, bone-deep weary, and part of him is glad Pepper’s still away on SI business.

He doesn’t have the energy to pretend he’s okay, or to have the conversation about what’s wrong.

The lights don’t come up when he walks into the lab, and Tony’s throat tightens painfully. He still can’t quite believe JARVIS is gone.

In the corner, there’s a soft beep, then DUM-E rolls out, the camera in his claw peering around uncertainly. “Hey,” Tony rasps, “hey, DUM-E, it’s me. You okay buddy?”

DUM-E rolls forward, reaching to grasp at Tony’s shirt. He trills, but it’s a confused, sad sound.

Tears prick at Tony’s eyes.

DUM-E has no way of knowing what the hell’s happened and Tony isn’t sure he knows how to explain. DUM-E trills again, questioning, and Tony’s breath hitches on a sob. He curls a hand around DUM-E’s strut and sinks down onto his chassis, grateful for the way DUM-E curls his arm over his shoulder.

Tony buries his face against the metal and cries.

“I’m sorry, DUM-E, I’m sorry. JARVIS is—he’s gone. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry.”

DUM-E beeps softly, concerned, or maybe Tony’s just projecting, god, he created somebody to care about him and he couldn’t even manage to make that relationship work, he’d gone and basically murdered him.

A wild noise wrenches free of his throat, the likes of which he hasn’t heard since Jarvis the namesake had died. It feels like he cries for ages, though it can’t be more than a few minutes. He feels hot and cold all over, eyes stinging from the salt, his chest aching with each rattling breath.

DUM-E makes an inquiring sound, the sound he makes when he’s trying to link up with JARVIS and not finding success and Tony shudders, fresh tears bubbling up. He curls a hand around DUM-E’s strut and rasps, “He’s gone, buddy. Deleted. Not coming back.”

DUM-E keeps trying though.


	22. The Avengers Take Care of Tired Tony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:
> 
> I cant sleep, and when I do I wake up MORE exhausted. So thats my shitty week. Uhhh ficlet prompt, sleepy cuddly Tony? Just Tony cuddling eith everyone, and being a blanket burrito would be nice. Or something to that effect  
> \--  
> i’m sorry that sounds awful. not being able to sleep is horrible. i hope this helps a little

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Exhausted!Tony, Sleepy!Tony, Cuddling, Avengers Family, Fluff
> 
> **Warnings:** None

Tony is a busy man. He works the equivalent of three full time jobs between SI, the Avengers, and dealing with managing his public life. He works long hours, so it’s not that surprising that given a moment to breathe, he tends to fall asleep.

It’s kind of a special treat when he manages to stay awake through a whole Avengers team night.

Tonight is not one of those nights.

Natasha smiles as Tony’s head sinks heavily onto her shoulder for the fifth time. “Tony, come on,” she says, lifting her hand to stroke through his hair.

“Nuh—wuuh ’m ‘wake,” he mumbles, but he can’t seem to lift his head.

Natasha laughs and presses a kiss to his forehead. “Sure you are. Steve. Help me with him, will you?”

“’m not sleeping,” Tony whines.

Clint throws popcorn at his head and it tumbles down over his face, making Tony’s nose wrinkle adorably.

Steve smiles as he sits down next to Tony and slides an arm around his waist. “We’re not gonna make you go to your room, Tony, but you should lie down at least. Your neck will hurt if you fall asleep like that.”

“’m not,” Tony protests and then yawns hugely, his body sinking into Steve’s chest.

“Sleep, Tony,” Thor says, reaching over the back of the couch to stroke a hand over the back of his head, down to the nape of his neck. Tony makes a soft noise of pleasure and softens a little more into Steve’s hold. “We will still be here.”

“Hand me that blanket, will you, Bruce?” Steve asks.

Bruce heaves himself out of the armchair, slipping the blanket off the back and unfolding it as he moves toward the couch. He lays it across the cushions with Natasha’s help and then Steve lifts Tony up far enough to center him over it.

“J'sus ’m fine,” he mumbles, but they ignore him. Steve wraps him up in the blanket like a human burrito and then sits back. Natasha gives Tony a push and he topples over, head in Steve’s lap. Bruce helps her lift Tony’s feet onto her lap and she tugs off his shoes, setting them next to the couch. Then she tucks the blanket around his feet. Meanwhile, Steve has started running his fingers through Tony’s hair and Tony’s expression has gone slack.

“Sleep tight, _kotenok_ ,” Natasha tells him.


	23. Tony Accidentally Hurts Natasha and Feels Terrible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:
> 
> I screwed up at work today. It wasn't that big a deal but I feel stupid and I'm convinced all my coworkers will think I'm dumb now. Would you write about Tony thinking the Avengers think he's dumb or useless only to find out he's wrong?  
> \--  
> I’m sorry, that really is the most awful feeling *hugs*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Friendly Fire, Tony  & Natasha Friendship, Tony & the Avengers Friendship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Guilt, Explicit Language, Self-Recrimination, hurt!Natasha, Tony Needs a Hug
> 
>  **Warnings:** None

Natasha is making droll jokes about the new scar she’s going to have splashed across her hip while Dr. Cho supervises her care. Clint is coming up the stairs with something in a glass and Steve, Thor, and Bruce are clustered around one of the access stations.

Tony is loitering in the far corner of the room, tinkering with the gauntlet he _fired on Natasha_ with. Every so often he catches his teammates glancing at him and it feels worse every time.

He’s made a lot of mistakes but he’d managed to avoid something as idiotic as friendly fire.

At least until now.

He hadn’t intended to hit her, it had just _happened_. JARVIS had tried to warn him, but he’d been determined to stop the snakelike creature from getting out of range and–

Tony glances up from the circuitry inside the gauntlet and finds Clint eyeballing him. Tony jerks his gaze back to the gauntlet, his hands clenching and manages to gouge a divot into the works. He swears.

Fucking with the hardware isn’t going to change anything anyway, why he’s bothering is beyond him. It wasn’t a hardware problem that burned Natasha. That was all him and everybody knows it.

Tony chokes down the bile building at the back of his throat and rubs one eye with the heel of his palm.

It’s honestly incredible just how stupid he is.

They should bench him, he deserves it. The idea still makes him feel sick. Why can’t he just get one fucking thing right?!

“Tony.”

He flinches away from Steve’s voice, startled to hear it right behind him. “I’m sorry,” he blurts. “I swear I didn’t mean to do it.”

Steve looks surprised by that, then his forehead bows in confusion. “What? Tony, of course you didn’t–-do you think we don’t know that?”

“I was stupid,” Tony says, and he’s doing that thing where he babbles when he’s freaking out, “I was in my own head, I didn’t listen to JARVIS when I should have–-”

“Tony, Jesus,” Clint says from over by the bed and he’s wide-eyed. “Dude, we know you didn’t mean to hit her. It was an accident.”

“But I should have done better,” Tony insists, he blinks, because his eyes are blurring.

Then Steve’s hand is on his shoulder, warm and gentle. “These things happen in battle, Tony. Things change quickly. You can’t always account for where your shot ends up.”

“ _Solnyshko_ , I don’t blame you,” Natasha says and Tony sniffs, viciously swipes a hand over his eyes.

“No?”

“ _Nyet_ ,” Natasha says, and smiles gently at him.

“If you truly think you owe your shield sister something, allow her to repay the favor,” Thor says. Everyone laughs, including Tony, although his is wet-sounding.

“Rain-check?”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” she says, and the guilt fades, just a little.


	24. Tony Catches Pneumonia and It Sucks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @mewithanie asked for a pneumatic avenger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Tony Stark, Sick!Tony, Hurt/Comfort, Pneumonia, Avengers Ensemble
> 
>  **Warnings:** None

Tony coughs himself awake before dawn and keeps at it so long he starts to panic.

He can’t breathe and his chest is on fire.

“J– J–”

Steve bursts in, followed by Bruce and Thor, and Steve is kneeling on the bed, pulling Tony into a bridal carry when Natasha and Clint show up. “Clear the way,” Steve demands, and they press back against the walls so he can pass. It’s hugely embarrassing, but also a relief because he’s not going to suffocate to death, they won’t let him.

It still feels like it for awhile.

“Take it easy, Tony,” Steve mutters as they all pile into the elevator, “you’re going to be okay.”

He says it with such conviction Tony can’t help but believe him.

He’s not sure how long it is before they get him settled and drugged up, an oxygen mask over his face, but it feels like an eternity and he’s exhausted by the end.

“Pneumonia,” the doctor sighs. “Mr. Stark, you’re going to have a hard time with your lungs the way they are. We may need to put you in a hyperbaric chamber if you get any worse. It’s imperative that you rest, though I suspect you’ll feel so terrible it will be a non-issue.”

“Great,” Tony croaks. He suspects the doctor is right. All he wants to do right now is sleep, but he’s still coughing too much to properly relax.

“We’ll keep an eye on him,” Natasha says.

When the doctor leaves, Natasha pushes him to the side so she can sit on the bed, their shoulders pressed together. Steve deflates like the air has been let out of him. He rakes his fingers through his hair.

“Last time I heard someone cough like that…” He smiles crookedly at Tony. “It doesn’t matter. Get better quick, huh?”

“Can’t will it away,” Tony tells him, “believe me, I’ve tried.”

“Lucky we’re in for the long haul then,” Clint says.

Tony smiles despite the way his chest feels like every scrap of shrapnel in his chest is a pocket of acid eating away at him.

He’s been through hell, he can handle this.


	25. Bucky's Chronic Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ohgodsabove asked:  
> my chronic pain is acting up and im very grumpy i have no one to cuddle. im sorry youre day is hard too. could i have something about bucky's arm hurting him maybe?  
> \--  
> yuck, i’m sorry *long distance cuddles*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** James "Bucky" Barnes, Chronic Pain, Hurt/Comfort
> 
> **Warnings:** None

There’s pretty much always a dull sort of ache in Bucky’s arm, particularly in the shoulder where it’s a kludged together mess of skin and scar tissue and shiny exposed metal, but some days are worse than others.

The arm is wired into his nervous system, that’s how it functions, so of course there’s some sensation. It’s not like the sensation he gets from his natural limbs—it feels kind of gritty and staticky, like the signal isn’t coming in clear. The nerves in the arm aren’t meant for the kind of delicate sensory work his natural ones are. They give him a sense of where the arm is in space, what it’s doing, and a sense of pressure that he’s honed to allow him to use any number of weapons, but it’s not comparable. He’s never going to be able to discern the fluffy softness of fleece with those fingertips.

Anyway, so it aches. Or at least it feels something Bucky’s brain can only interpret as ache.

Sometimes though, it’s like his body realizes something is very, very wrong and those days the arm aches fiercely, a throbbing core sending out sharp threads of needle-sharp pain into the joints and fine circuitry.

They’re miserable days, because there’s not much you can do to soothe circuitry. Massages don’t work on metal.

The best he can do is try to relax the rest of his body while he waits for it to pass. Distraction helps.

After the third or fourth time it happens in the Tower, Tony comes up with a system to, essentially, recalibrate the nerves. He performs a variety of motions, touches, and applications of pressure and sometimes that’s enough to get the arm back down to normal levels of sensation. Other times, Bucky’s brain is feeling disagreeable and it only aggravates the pain.

He takes it one day at a time, one moment at a time, and that’s all he can do.


	26. Tony, Trapped in His Armor Underwater

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> onemuseleft asked:
> 
> Today was one of those days where even though nothing bad happened, it felt like one near disaster after another. I'm tired and have a serious case of imposter syndrome going on. Can I prompt you for a fic about Tony trapped under water in a non-responsive armor?  
> \--  
> of course my computer decided to crash and then perform a thousand updates. a;slkdfjdsakl;jfas
> 
> you are not an imposter, you are great. i hope tomorrow is less precarious feeling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Tony Stark, Drama, Fear, Mission Fic
> 
> **Warnings:** Claustrophobia-inducing situation

The support beam slams into Tony’s upper back, and throws him into the water. Tony gets a flash of a warning banner declaring a critical system down, then the suit’s systems flicker and die. Without power, the armor sinks like a ton of bricks straight toward the bottom.

The suit, bless his own fucking foresight, is reinforced down the back of the skull and over his spine, so  it doesn’t _feel_ great when he gets hit, but all his bones, and more importantly his _spine_ remain intact.

“Come on, come on,” Tony mutters, trying desperately to get the suit to respond.

He’s in an old abandoned subway tunnel—apparently filled with water, good to know, just _great—_ so it’s pitch black without the HUD.

The suit’s still pressurized, which Tony is painfully grateful for, especially when he discovers that he can move his arms okay—although it’s not easy moving a few dozen pounds of metal with no hydraulics to give him some juice—but he’s trapped from the waist down.

It’s that realization that catapults Tony’s heart into his throat.

“Don’t freak out,” he tells himself, breath washing back hot and moist over his nose without the circulation system going. “Don’t freak out. They know you’re down here. You just have to wait it out. The suit will hold.”

But the black, the endless, impenetrable black scares him right down to his bones.


	27. Sam Has a Bad Day and Steve is Supportive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *whispers* i’m sorry you had a bad day @arukou-arukou. i wrote this for you <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Angst, Bad Day, Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers, Sam  & Steve Friendship, Supportive Steve
> 
> **Warnings:** None

Sam is drenched in sweat by the time dawn rolls around, although the heavy fog clinging to the earth means it’s still gloomy gray out.

_Perfect_ , he thinks, and hates the bitterness of his own thoughts.

Steve shows up not too long after that, catching up with Sam easily. As he approaches, Sam spits out, “Don’t,” each breath sawing harshly in and out of his lungs. It burns like a mother and he relishes it.

Steve doesn’t say anything, just paces him. That’s almost as infuriating. Sam bites his tongue and pushes himself harder.

Not even five minutes later he hits his limit, pushing himself too hard and too fast, and he growls out a breathless noise of frustration as his legs stop cooperating and he stumbles, staggering and skidding to his knees in the grass. He flops onto his back immediately, sucking in air to lungs burning like volcano fire, sweat stinging his eyes.

He’s all too aware of Steve stretching out next to him, breathing a little heavier.

“I told you,” Sam says harshly. “I got bags like everybody else.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. “And normally you carry them like you’re Captain America.” He shrugs and Sam sees the corner of his mouth flicker upward. “Today you’re Steve Rogers—pre-serum. That’s okay though,” he says, looking over. His damn eyes are so blue. “Today, I’ve got enough Captain in me for both of us.”

He lays a broad hand on Sam’s chest, seeping warmth down into it, and the hard knot where Sam’s heart normally sits loosens up a little.

Sam closes his eyes and breathes.


	28. Natasha and Tony Bake Cookies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> squeeful asked:  
> Could I have Natasha and Tony being friends and baking cookies?  
> \--  
> yes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Baking, Cookies, Italian!Tony, Tony Stark, Natasha Romanova, Tony  & Natasha Friendship, Fluff, Banter
> 
> **Warnings:** None

“So your mother used to make these with you?” Natasha asks and watches out of the corner of her eye as Tony separates the eggs, cupping the yolk in his palm and letting the whites drip out between his fingers in goopy strands. She’s been given the task of chopping up the almond paste. She didn’t even know almond paste existed.

Tony smiles, soft and small, then rolls his shoulders back and says, “Yep,” cheerfully. “Rainbow cookies were her favorite. We made them when dad was gone because he’d complain that real men don’t bake.”

Natasha shrugs. “Well, that’s very rational.”

Tony shoots her a look, his mouth curling in a grin that flashes his canines. Natasha’s glad they made it past all the initial ugliness, glad they formed the Avengers, glad Tony invited them into his home. She loves surprising him, the same way she loves to make Steve smile. “Anyway, she taught me and it’s been years since I made them, but since you’ve never made cookies it seemed like as good a time as any to break out the recipe.”

“Well, they better be good. This recipe says we have to put them in the fridge for four hours. I’m going to have to wait to put the fruits of all this labor in my mouth. I hate waiting.”

To her pleasure, Tony starts laughing. “Okay, that I knew about you.”

“Shut up,” she says, grinning and flicks a bit of flour into his face. It makes white splotches on his goatee. Then he sneezes, turning his face into his own shoulder.

“Rude.”

“God, Stark, hurry up. Look, I’m already done,” she says in reply, setting her knife down next to the heap of chopped almond paste. He holds up his goopy hands threateningly.

“Do not make me egg you, Romanova. I’ll do it.”

She gasps in mock horror and pulls her hair back out of her face—which, actually that’s a good idea. She tugs the hairband off of her wrist and ties it back with a few quick loops. Then she catches one of the hands he’s still trying to menace her with and licks the egg whites off the end of his finger. He makes a scandalized noise.

“You’re going to get salmonella!”

Natasha smirks. “I used to eat raw eggs, Tony, I think I’ll survive.”

He pulls back a little, looking utterly appalled. “That’s disgusting. That's—that’s truly revolting.”

“It’s yummy and nutritious.”

“No. Shush. God, your childhood was a disaster. Quick, get the mixer. We need to get these cookies done and inside you so we can attempt to reverse some of the damage.”

Natasha laughs as she pulls it toward them across the counter.


	29. Sam Wrenches His Knee Real Bad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam Wilson, sprained knee  
> — dirtyzucchini

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Sam Wilson, Hurt/Comfort, Sprains, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, First Aid, Crying!Sam

sam sprains his knee coming in for a landing and it feels like he’s torn his damn leg off. honestly, he thinks he’s shattered something important it hurts so bad and he can’t do more than sit up without practically going black from the pain. he ends up waiting there, blinking back tears, until bruce and clint arrive to pick him up.

“bad?” bruce says, the minute he sees his face and sam nods, chokes out of a tightwire throat, “real bad.”

bruce wants to splint his leg, just in case, so clint ends up holding him down and sam screams as bruce eases his leg straight. he beats a fist against the ground, cutting it up on the rough, gravelly surface and he doesn’t even care because it feels like someone’s jamming a hot poker in around his patella

“oh just kill me,” he groans wetly and clint squeezes his shoulder.

“sorry we’re not gonna do that, wilson.”

sam groans again and fat tears leave streaks down his cheeks and start to pool in his ears

by the time they’re halfway home, his knee is as big as a cantaloupe and bruce has had to cut his pants open to keep them from cutting off his circulation. the ice heaped around it helps, a little, but it’s still fairly excruciating.

Bruce has already tentatively diagnosed it as a sprain, but they take him for x-rays to be sure, and sure enough, he’s sprained his mcl pretty badly. not bad enough to require surgery thank god. lotta rest and care and he’ll be good as new.


	30. Bruce forgets to eat and passes out and bonks his head and gets a boo boo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mewithanie asked:  
> Bruce forgets to eat and passes out and bonks his head and gets a boo boo?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Bruce Banner, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Banter, Bruce  & Tony Friendship, Bruce & Steve Friendship, Avengers Family, Low Blood Sugar, Blood, Self-Care
> 
>  **Warning:** None

tony learns he’s not even in the running for subpar personal care the first week after the avengers move in when he gets a notification from jarvis telling him that bruce collapsed in his lab

he races up there to find out what the hell happened and finds bruce sprawled on the floor, blood pouring from a cut somewhere near his hairline that tony can’t even see. bright red is matting down the curls on the side of his head, pooling on the floor, and tony will admit he has a minor freak out. 

WHAT HAPPENED? he demands from jarvis and then, scratch that tell me after you call steve.

“he’s already on his way, sir,” jarvis says and then goes on: “doctor banner collapsed, I believe due to low blood sugar, possibly in addition to low blood pressure. he has not eaten or drunk anything but coffee today, sir, and he takes his black”

“you’re kidding” tony mutters and grumbles to himself about scientists and superheros and ceos and their awful personal habits while he squeamishly puts pressure on the wound to try and stop the bleeding.

steve comes flying through the door like a bat out of hell a second later, brandishing the shield and looking ready to do battle. tony gets his attention and is unsurprised when steve seems surprised that the hulk is not paying them a visit. once that’s clear, he sets the shield aside and moves quickly into concerned mode, dropping next to tony. “what happened?”

“passed out from lack of food and water. hit his head on the way down”

steve sighs. “you’re keeping pressure?”

“doing my best.” he shifts to reexert himself and the blood squelches under his palm and he grimaces.

steve’s mouth twitches in a smile. “squeamish?”

“i don’t deal with a lot of other peoples’ blood okay, I deal mainly with my own, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be a little…grossed out.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

steve checks bruce’s pulse and breathing and then goes and retrieves a first aid kit form one of the cabinets by the wall. he’s pulling out gauze when bruce’s eyes flutter open.

“whazzaapen?” he says and squints.

“little over eighteen hours sans drink and food is what happened” tony tells him. 

he lifts his hands when steve waves at him and then puts them back down when he waves again, this time over a pad of gauze. “you had a lab drop.”

bruce grimaces and steve gently brushes his hand away when he reaches up to try and feel at what tony’s doing. “e'ghteen hours?”

“yep.”

“guess that’d do it. ow.” his eyes pinch shut for a moment and then open again abruptly. he jolts a little under tony’s hands. “the other guy. did. did the other guy…?”

“nope,” tony says easily. “guess he couldn’t be bothered.”

bruce swallows and the tendons in his neck disappear as he relaxes again. “oh” he lets out a shaky breath. “good.”

“you know, I thought I was bad at personal care,” tony says conversationally.

bruce rubs at his forehead a little and then frowns at the obstruction on the left. 

steve guides his hand away again when he tries to prod at it. “get fixated sometimes,” he murmurs. then: “am I bleeding?”

“you hit your head on the lab table.” steve explains “jarvis called us.”

“oh.”

“i’m gonna have to ban you from the lab, doc,” steve says. “you need to get some rest, get some food in you, get checked out by a doctor”

bruce sighs. “that’s fair.” after a beat he adds, “and, tony, you _are_ bad at personal care.”

“hey,” tony protests.

“you are,” steve agrees.

“so are you!” tony retorts.

steve’s mouth twists into wry smile. “you’re not wrong.”

tony grins and between them, bruce is smiling too.

“guess we’ll just have to take care of each other.”


	31. Sam Breaks a Leg in a Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> maplerosekisses asked:  
> if you're still taking those injury prompts maybe sam's wings malfunction or get knocked off balance when he's just about to land anyway so he falls a (relatively) short distance and ends up with like, a broken leg and some bruises or something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanova, Tony Stark, Sam  & Natasha Friendship, Sam & Tony Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Broken Bones
> 
> **Warnings:** None

sam knows the wings better than anyone (even if tony likes to think he does) so when something glitches, he knows the instant it happens. it’s not enough for him to do anything about it unfortunately.

the left wing stops responding and he immediately drops. he does the best he can to take himself down the twenty feet to the ground, but it’s almost impossible with only one functioning wing. he comes down hard with the other avengers shouting in his ear, tumbling ass over teakettle for what feels like forever.

he’s sprawled on the ground breathing in the smell of asphalt and trying to figure out which way is up when natasha skids to her knees next to him. “sam? sam? can you—”

he groans and natasha breathes a sigh, putting a hand on his shoulder. “i’ve got him, he’s alive”

“let’s not be hasty,” sam croaks and natasha does her best not to smile.

turns out he’s broken his leg.

he’s scuffed and bruised and has some roadrash on his cheek that hurts like a mother and makes shaving a nightmare.

his leg is tough too. he’s used to getting around on his own and it makes pretty much everything more difficult. then again, he’s alive.

while he’s recovering he ends up pretty much moving into the tower, which allows the avengers to help him out. it’s pretty sweet actually. tony certainly knows how to live. the bathroom floors are heated

tony’s harboring some guilt over what happened, although sam can’t quite figure that out. it wasn’t his fault, nothing he could have done to stop it, but that describes tony himself pretty well—once he’s got his head set on something it’s tough to get him to budge.

sam ends up sprawled in one corner of tony’s workshop a lot during the months of his recovery, giving input while tony reworks the exo-7 at first and then just watching curiously while tony works on other things

the biggest surprise comes when he’s fully recovered and he goes back to his apartment in brooklyn and finds he misses the tower—and not just because of the floors

when he casually asks if tony’s offer to move in is still on the table, tony’s grin is all the answer he needs


	32. Steve Breaks Natasha's Ankle (On Accident!!)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> asexual-sailor asked:  
> Natasha, broken ankle?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Broken Bones, Natasha Romanova, Steve Rogers, Hurt/Comfort, Natasha  & Steve Friendship, Natasha & the Avengers, Fluff, Avengers Family, Lack of Punctuation and Other Niceties
> 
>  **Warnings:** None

steve lands on it during a sparring session.

natasha actually screams because she’s so startled by it. that’s what alarms her most, because it means she’s gotten so comfortable sparring with steve that she’s not expecting to be injured. they push each other, but she’s gotten to a point where she knows how far she’ll be pushed and this isn’t on the menu and it takes her by complete surprise. it’s not on purpose, so that should be fine, but it still shakes her a little

steve is horrified, stumbling over apology after apology and after about the thirteenth natasha kind of wants to break his jaw just to shut him up. he’d probably feel less guilty about it if she did. but she just sighs and snaps, “steve, you didn’t mean to do it, please stop.”

bruce wraps her ankle, his blunt fingers gentle around the swelling and he says, “i probably don’t have to tell you what to do.”

he doesn’t. this isn’t the first time she’s broken an ankle and she’s got a routine that helps her maximise her function and mobility without compromising the bone’s ability to heal. she gets around easily on crutches and steve and thor’s shoulders and on clint’s back. she has a particular set of clothes that are easier to get in and out of, a showering technique that keeps her foot dry, and a happy place to go in her head when the pain is bad.

the boys kind of dote on her and that’s weird, but she likes it. even tony faux-casually pokes his head in wherever she is and checks to see how she’s doing, bringing her tea or food or whatever else she needs.

she’s had broken ankles before, but she’s never been cared for like this and it’s something she thinks she could get used to.


	33. Thor Zaps Tony and Feels Just Terrible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tastyrepulsorboots asked:  
> oooh! you know in pacific rim where we get the shirtless scene and he has, like, cicuitry scars, like the inside of his suit cut/burned him? Tony Stark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Electrocution, Hurt/Comfort, Tony Stark, Thor Odinson, Science!, Thor  & Tony Stark
> 
> **Warnings:** None

it’s an accident. a really terrible accident and tony feels awful about it, which is hilarious because he’s the victim here, not thor, but he still feels awful because thor looks _devastated._

he’s testing a new armour and apparently there’s a flaw in the wiring or the shielding or something because thor zaps him to test out whether he’s managed to bring the go-beyond-max-power thing into the upgrade and the answer is apparently ‘no’ because he wakes up in a blacked out suit, flat on his back.

thor looks totally wrecked when he wrenches open the faceplate and tony blinks in the sudden light and croaks, ‘what happened?’

well, what happened was apparently he did _not_ manage to carry that feature into the upgrade and he got more than a little electrocuted and possibly died for a minute or two there. so he’s dodged death now twice, hopefully he’s more like a cat with nine lives and not operating on some kind of three times is a charm thing

anyway, so he got a little bit electrocuted, thor apologized a thousand times and tony assured him a thousand and one times that it’s not his fault he couldn’t have known and that was his bad. it was his design that failed after all.

as a result, he ends up with some pretty interesting scars down his right thigh and creeping across his stomach from the lightning traveling along the circuits

at this rate he’ll be more scar than skin soon


	34. Three Sentence Fics

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no tags because these are super short.  
> warning that most of these are people talking about people in romantic relationships. the last two are completely gen.

[onemuseleft](http://onemuseleft.tumblr.com/) asked:

#  [Rhodey and Steve/Tony: "I want you to tell me the truth"](http://musicalluna.tumblr.com/post/143926996050/rhodey-and-stevetony-i-want-you-to-tell-me-the)

[5 May 2016](http://musicalluna.tumblr.com/post/143926996050/rhodey-and-stevetony-i-want-you-to-tell-me-the)

Steve nods warily.

Rhodey presses his lips together briefly and then says, “Are you just messing with him? Is this some kind of fling for you? Some kind of adrenaline-fueled bad decision?”

“No!” Steve says, sharp and immediate. “No, Tony–he, I– Tony is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Rhodey’s face immediately softens.

* * *

 [onemuseleft](http://onemuseleft.tumblr.com/) asked:

#  [Pepper/Happy: "We need to have a serious conversation about your definition of 'restraint'"](http://musicalluna.tumblr.com/post/143977985995/pepperhappy-we-need-to-have-a-serious)

[6 May 2016](http://musicalluna.tumblr.com/post/143977985995/pepperhappy-we-need-to-have-a-serious)

“He looked like a threat,” Happy protests stubbornly.

Pepper winces at the low, breathless groan Steve delivers to the floor, where he’s half-curled up. She can see the muscles under his skin still twitching occasionally.

“God, she mutters, I can’t believe you tased Captain America.”

“Great thing to tell your kids,” Steve pants, and grimaces again. “Holy hell that hurts.”

* * *

[amaronith](https://amaronith.tumblr.com/) asked:

#  [I noticed you doing a bunch of little minific things, is it too late to submit mine? if so, feel free to ignore this, but if not: Rhodey/Steve + Tony "I told you so."](http://musicalluna.tumblr.com/post/144009344090/i-noticed-you-doing-a-bunch-of-little-minific)

[7 May 2016](http://musicalluna.tumblr.com/post/144009344090/i-noticed-you-doing-a-bunch-of-little-minific)

Natasha’s expression is obnoxiously smug.

“How did I not notice?” Tony demands (yet again), staring at the way Steve’s face lights up with a smile when Rhodey sidles up behind him and presses a kiss to his shoulder. “My two best friends!”

Steve looks happier than he’s ever seen him look, which is something of a relief–Tony’s been worried about him for years. He should have noticed the change.

Rhodey seems more relaxed, too.

“Good for them,” he murmurs.

* * *

Anonymous asked:

#  [Bucky and Steve/Tony - "You're good for him."](http://musicalluna.tumblr.com/post/144010501065/bucky-and-stevetony-youre-good-for-him)

[7 May 2016](http://musicalluna.tumblr.com/post/144010501065/bucky-and-stevetony-youre-good-for-him)

Tony pushes himself to smile. “I’m not good for anyone, but thanks.”

“No,” Bucky says stubbornly, “you are. You don’t know him the way I do.” Tony winces and he adds, “That’s not how I meant it. You just– You didn’t see him, the way he was. Pushing himself to be a part of something because he was so afraid of being useless. You make him feel like he matters.”

Tony frowns. “He does matter. Steve is–Steve is helping change the world with just the force of his personality–”

“Just that you say ‘Steve’ and not ‘Captain America’ is everything, Tony. He needs someone to see him like that.”

“It wasn’t Captain America who was there for me.”

* * *

Anonymous asked:

#  [The words were choking him, pressing down against his tongue, forcing his mouth closed, and it was a long minute before he could force them out. (5 sentence prompt )](http://musicalluna.tumblr.com/post/144685619245/the-words-were-choking-him-pressing-down-against)

[20 May 2016](http://musicalluna.tumblr.com/post/144685619245/the-words-were-choking-him-pressing-down-against)

“He was my best.  _Friend,”_ Sam croaks finally. “And I had to watch him die out there. When I close my eyes, I see it, clearer than anything else.” Sam sniffs and wipes the tear that streaks from his eye with a trembling hand. “I have to look at a picture to remember what he looks like clear enough. But that wreckage–the blood and–” He shakes his head. “I remember that just fine.”

* * *

Anonymous asked:

#  [!! Can I send a one sentence prompt too? "Sometimes the unfairness of it all blinded him"](http://musicalluna.tumblr.com/post/144686317145/can-i-send-a-one-sentence-prompt-too)

[20 May 2016](http://musicalluna.tumblr.com/post/144686317145/can-i-send-a-one-sentence-prompt-too)

The army and–more specifically–the paratrooper unit had been the first time in Sam’s life when he’d ever felt at home in his skin, like he belonged and like he wasn’t just the baby-fat bearing over-emotional kid he’d been stuck as for so long.

His friendship with Riley had been deep and almost instantaneous and it had been hard–harder than hell to go from feeling like the invincible kings of the world to having it all end like Humpty Dumpty.

It wasn’t exactly the first time he’d ever been faced with unfairness, but after a taste of something so good, it had been a slap in the face.

But he’s dealing.


	35. Tony and Natasha Have Crappy Days and Indulge in Touch Therapy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:  
> My boss made me stay an extra two hours after work so we could make the store look nice for some guys from corporate that are coming in tomorrow. I was already exhausted from three hours of weeding in the blazing heat earlier today, and it was just not something I needed in my life atm. If you want, could I see Tony + Natasha just being best friends and helping each other out when the other is tired/stressed/scared from nightmares/whatever? Tons of trust and fluff. Thank you!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Natasha Romanova, Tony Stark, Hugs, Touch Therapy, Bad Day, Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Banter, Stress Relief
> 
> **Warnings:** None

“On a scale of one to swamped how busy are you?”

“I’m always at an eleven, what do you need?” Tony asks, pulling his tie loose and bending to look into the fridge. Old Chinese. Old Thai. New latkes. Apple juice. Orange juice. Orange soda. Hmm…

“Touch therapy?” Natasha says and Tony immediately stops his perusal of the fridge and straightens up, turning to look at her. He feels like he’s dead on his feet, but Natasha doesn’t look much better. She’s wearing one of Steve’s sweatshirts–dammit, Tony can’t even get one of those–and there’s a ring of bruising on her left cheekbone. She’s not wearing make-up, or pants.

“Come here,” he orders and she heads straight for him, arms coming up alongside his and wrapping around his body, her small hands skimming across his back. “Hey,” he says, squeezing her tight. “It’s okay.”

She makes an annoyed noise and buries her face in his shoulder, her nails digging into his sides just a little.

Tony presses his face into her hair, breathing in the scent of her. Tony’s stomach growls, but he ignores it, rubbing small circles on her back.

It feels good to hold her and some of the stress of the day seeps out of his body, draining out of him as her warmth fills him up. Finally, she turns her head so her face isn’t swallowed up by his jacket anymore and mutters, “You need to cut yourself more slack, Tony. You know we’ll understand if you take a breather.”

Tony doesn’t reply. That may be true, but knowing it and being able to do something about the squirming guilt that creeps in on him whenever he does anything remotely inward-focused are entirely different beasts. Which he knows Natasha knows, because she is very pointedly not talking about whatever it is that’s eating at her.

His stomach growls and Natasha sighs loudly. “God, eat something, that noise is ridiculous.”

“Well, I was  _trying_ , but  _some_ body wanted a hug.”

“Point me at that bitch.”

Tony laughs. 


	36. Tony Gets a Migraine and Clint Takes Care of Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> rofro05 replied to your post “crappy day fics: mini edition”  
> Migraine will not quit. Tony with a headache?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh, bae, no D: i’m so sorry
> 
> –
> 
> **Tags:** Migraine, Hurt!Tony, Tony Stark, Clint Barton, Hurt/Comfort, JARVIS
> 
> **Warnings:** None

Tony, being the brilliant man that he is, waits until the headache has gone from ‘mild annoyance’ to ‘impossible to ignore’ to do anything about it.

He swallows down a handful of pills and then curls up on the couch in the corner, covering his head with one of the throw pillows. “Strike me down, JARVIS, do your old man a solid.”

“I would rather not, sir.”

“You’re not my favorite anymore. DUM-E is my new favorite.”

“DUM-E has always been and shall always be your favorite, sir. I know this.”

Tony grumbles under the pillow because there’s no use denying it. Dammit, all he needs is for JARVIS to cut a hole in the side of his head with a laser, then he’ll feel better, he’s sure of it.

His stomach turns with every beat of his heart, the knot of pain in his skull throbbing in time with it. God, he doesn’t want this to be a puking headache. Please don’t be a puking headache.

“Tony?”

Tony whines at the sound of Clint’s voice.

“Quieter, please, Agent Barton,” JARVIS requests.

“Shit, sorry,” Clint replies, voice dropped to a whisper. “I brought what you said.”

“Sir is on the couch at the far end of the workshop,” JARVIS tells him and Tony hears the muted approach of footsteps.

“You’re an idiot,” Clint tells him softly, and Tony whines again as he tugs the pillow out of his grasp.

It’s quickly replaced by a cool, damp washcloth that blots out even more of the light and Tony can’t help the relieved noise he makes. “Don’t hit me while I’m down, Katniss.”


	37. Tony is Hot and Rhodey Coaxes Him into the Pool

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Heat Wave, PTSD
> 
> **Warnings:** None

“I’m melting,” Tony moans and Rhodey snorts a laugh.

“You regularly work in a forge.”

“That is not  _sustained_ heat, Sugar Bee.”

“Well maybe if you’d get  _in_  the water…”

Tony grimaces at the blue shimmering water of the pool and Rhodey standing at the edge with his arms crossed on the lip. His expression is steady and sure–-not judging.

Tony rubs a hand over his goatee. It seems like he can feel his skin burning. “All right. Stay there. Just–-don’t move.”

“Whatever you say, Tones.”

He does exactly as Tony asked, turning only his head to follow Tony’s progress as he moves toward the steps at the end of the pool.

“Just breathe in the smell of the chlorine.”

Tony does as he’s told and then steps into the pool.


	38. Tony is Awed By Clint's Instinctive Math Skillz

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> orbingarrow asked:  
> My sunburn is still awful and I found out I got pulled from a work trip I was reallllly looking forward to in favor of a guy with a lot less experience than me, just because they think the destination is "safer for a man." It's a place I've been to a half dozen times by myself! Grrrrr. Anyway, for the cheer up fics I would love to see Tony and Clint with A fascinated by something B can do, and B being surprised because they didn't think anyone was at all interested in the skill! <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow that is some Nonsense.
> 
> –
> 
> **Tags:** Clint Barton, Tony Stark, Maths, Friendship, Explicit Language
> 
> **Warnings:** None

“Wait, wait, wait, hang on, you’re telling me you make those shots without doing any math  _at all?”_ Tony says, staring.

Clint stares back at him. “I don’t even know what three times three is, man.”

Tony narrows his eyes. “That’s bullshit.”

Clint stares at him for another beat and then huffs and mutters, “Okay, fine, I know what three times three is. I don’t know what-the-fuck-ever you’d use to calculate–-” He wiggles his fingers. “Stuff.”

“You’re telling me when you make those shots, it’s pure fucking instinct?”

Clint shrugs fiddling with the head of the arrow in his hand. “Sure, I guess so. I mean, I think about it. There’s no  _numbers_  though.”

Tony stares some more and Clint squirms.

“What?”

“Nothing, that’s just incredible. There is an entire  _system_  in the suit just for aiming things–-me, missiles, the repulsors-–all of it. Hundreds of calculations by one of the most sophisticated computers on the planet and you’ve seen how much I miss.”

“A lot.” 

“It is not a lot!” Tony protests. “24% of the time is not a lot!”

“How much do I miss?” Clint asks.

After a long beat Tony grudgingly admits, “13% of the time. But I’m not always there to get data from your shots, so that dataset is not complete!”

Clint smirks with satisfaction.


	39. The Avengers Fuss Over an Injured Tony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> azulmay asked:  
> Hi! Hope you keep having nice days! Maybe something with Tony being taking care by (any relationship, or just by his team /friends pepper/rhodey),not necessarily sick? Maybe he needs rest have a mild injury or simply they want to pamper him

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you! i hope this is kind of what you were looking for
> 
> –
> 
> **Tags:** Hurt!Tony, Hurt/Comfort, Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanova, Thor Odinson, Bruce Banner, Clint Barton, Fluff, Avengers Family, Pampered Tony

Tony’s been on the other side of this equation several times, but this is the first time he’s ever been the recipient of the attention of The Mother-Hengers.

Natasha delivers him a green smoothie—his recipe, with a small smile. Then she curls up in the chair next to the medical bed and settles in to watch him without watching him.

“You got enough blankets?” Clint calls up from the floor below and Tony rolls his eyes.

“This bed  _warms_  for god’s sake. Yes, I have enough blankets.”

Clint climbs the stairs three at a time, hands stretched out to hold on to both railings. “Blankets aren’t always for cold, smartass.”

Tony opens his mouth and then closes it again, because that’s a fair point. “Touche.”

Over by the table in the corner where the mangled pieces of the Iron Man suit that they’d pried Tony out of have been laid out, Thor is hunched over, examining each piece.

“Thor, buddy, what are you doing?” Tony asks.

“This is not my strength, I know that,” Thor replies, “but I would know what caused this incident that I would not contribute to it happening again.”

A stray bolt of lightning from Mjölnir  _had_  been a contributing factor in the crash, but Tony doesn’t really want to tell Thor that. He makes the worst anguished faces.

“I saw what happened,” Steve says, reappearing from wherever  _he’d_  vanished off to. He looks exhausted, his face pink and blotchy, the way it gets after he thinks he’s done something really wrong. “The harpy had clawed a gouge in the side of the armor early on in the fight. Just before the—” Steve pauses, seeming to lose his voice for a moment. He clears his throat. “Just before the crash, I told Tony to try coming up from under her. I told you to zap her. She was low, I figured a one-two would do it, but—” Steve’s throat works again and Tony wants to shake him. “The lightning went straight for Tony instead. The gouge—the gouge compromised the suit’s shielding.”

“Come on,” Tony complains. “This is not your fault. Either of you. I’m not even that badly hurt! A couple bruised ribs and a gnarly burn on my hip—it could have been way worse.”

“Or it could have been way better,” Steve counters and Tony wants to smack him a little. How is he supposed to argue with that?

“I’m literally okay to go now, I’m just being held hostage by a bunch of mother hens,” Tony says, exasperated.

“Humor us,” Bruce says, clutching a steaming cup of tea so close to his face it’s fogging up his glasses. “You didn’t see the way it looked when you crashed.”

Tony can imagine it was pretty spectacular, though. He’d caused a small crater in Central Park.

He tries to imagine it from the other side of things and has to swallow, hard.

“Well, who’s going to get up here and cuddle with me?” he demands.

He’s surprised when they all turn to look at Steve instead of clamoring to join him all at once.

Steve blushes, but he smiles, almost shyly at Tony. “Scoot.”


	40. Tony Moves to Boston and Meets Rhodey in Class

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:  
> I'm glad your day was good! You totally deserve it. Can you maybe write something about Tony moving to MIT? I've just moved cities and it's really, really lonely knowing literally no one ):

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you! OMG ME TOOOOO. new location buddies *high five*
> 
> –
> 
> **Tags:** Tony  & Rhodey Friendship, Moving, MIT, Loneliness
> 
> **Warnings:** None

It’s not like Boston is even that far from New York.

Charlie could have Tony home in like three hours and if Tony made a fuss, Dad might even send Jarvis. That would take six, but being with Jarvis is like being home anyway so not really.

The point is, he’s barely away from home. He was further in boarding school.

So he’s alone, what else is new?

It doesn’t matter that everyone else is older than him, and bigger than him, or even that some of them are smarter than him. It doesn’t matter that he has an enormous apartment that makes him feel like he has to run to the window to check occasionally that nuclear winter didn’t come late and leave him the last man on earth. He definitely doesn’t play his cassettes at max volume just to get rid of the aching silence.

It’s fine. He’s a Stark Man.

So what if he’s only fifteen.

He’s got a couple bottles of good booze he took from his dad’s liquor cabinet—that’ll make him all kinds of friends.

A skinny guy with dark skin, suspicious eyes, and a razor-sharp flattop eyeballs him when he flops down into the desk beside him on the first day of classes.

Tony eyeballs him back.

He waits for the inevitable, “ _What are you, twelve?_ ” or, “ _Guess you can get anywhere with the name Stark,”_  but what he gets instead is, “Star Wars or Star Trek?”

Tony’s too confused to do anything but blurt out the truth. “Star Trek.”

Fortunately, that seems to be the right answer. The guy’s eyes light up and he leans forward. “You watching The Animated Series?”

Tony puts a hand to his chest, widens his eyes. “Am I  _breathing?”_


	41. Rhodey Comforts Tony After His Parents' Deaths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> singingwithoutwords asked:  
> Any chance I can get the Tony pairing of your choice and something involving a road trip?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it’s kind of sad i’m sorry??????
> 
> –
> 
> **Tags:** Off-Screen Canon Character Deaths, Grief, Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Tony  & Rhodey Friendship, Crying!Tony
> 
> **Warnings:** None

“Let’s hit the fucking road, Pooh Bear,” Tony sighs, adjusting his shades and the MIT ball cap he’s wearing so they block out a little more light. It’s eleven AM and he only shifted from drunk to hungover about forty minutes ago. He’d like to shift back into drunk, but Rhodey’s being a stick in the mud.

“Tony,” Rhodey says, and his voice is weird and gentle and Tony hates it.

“Don’t,” he bites out. “I’ll get out and walk to the nearest liquor store, so just—don’t.”

Rhodey sighs and slides into the driver’s seat. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t care,” Tony says, and accepts Rhodey’s coat when it’s offered, balling it up and clutching it to his chest. Like a pressure bandage keeping him together. “Doesn’t matter.” His voice is muffled by the coat. “As long as it’s not New York.”

“Hey,” Rhodey says, reaching out with one hand and cupping the back of Tony’s neck. His index and middle fingers find skin and the soft touch makes Tony’s eyes prick. “Look, I know you’re scared, but it’s going to be okay.”

Tony scoffs, but it comes out thicker and wetter than he wanted. “I’m not scared. I’m delighted. I can do whatever I want now my dad’s f-fucking d-d-dead.”

He’s crying before he can do anything about it and Rhodey climbs over the gearshift, half crushing him. It’s not close enough.

Rhodey kisses his hair. “I’m sorry. I’m here, Tones. I’m sorry. I’m here.”

He’s all Tony has left, and he holds on tight.


	42. Natasha Judges Steve After Tony Breaks Up With Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> starkwest asked:  
> It's been a bit difficult of late. May I request a crappy day fic please? Pairing. Tony&Natasha. Trope. Break up with a protective Natasha. Ending line. "Tony wears depression as a beautiful but ragged cloak. If you had just looked at the material behind the colors, Steve, Tony would still be with you today." Thank you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m sorry to hear that :(
> 
> –
> 
> **Tags:** Asshole!Steve, Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanova, past Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Break Up, Tony  & Natasha Friendship, Unhappy Ending, Angst
> 
> **Warnings:** None

“I don’t understand why you’re angry at  _me_ ,” Steve says, arms crossed and his mouth pulled into a thin line. “Tony’s the one who broke it off.”

Natasha glares at him. “You can be a real asshole, you know that?”

Steve huffs a laugh, that sardonic, disbelieving smile cutting across his face. “Did you just come here to rub it in? Did Tony put you up to this?”

“You know he didn’t,” Natasha snaps. “He’s a wreck, Steve. Because of this. Because of  _you_.”

Steve’s expression hardens and closes off. “I did everything I could,” he says stiffly.

Natasha pities him, she does, and she lets him see it in her expression because she knows he’ll hate it.

“Tony wears depression as a beautiful but ragged cloak. If you had just looked at the material behind the colors, Steve, Tony would still be with you today.”


	43. Tony Has a Nerd-Gasm When He Sees the Milano for the First Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:  
> crappy day prompt: tony + "wow"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Tony Stark, Peter Quill, Humor
> 
> **Warnings:** None

"Wow!" Tony claps his hands gleefully and circles around the ship, drinking in the sight of it greedily. “What is this?” he says waving a hand over part of it. “How does it work?”

Quill shrugs. “I don’t know, man, I just drive her. Fly her. Whatever.”

Tony mutters something like “ingrate” under his breath and then starts firing off questions about what the Milano looks like when she’s flying, whether the exhaust is hot or cold, whether there’s any radiation involved.

When Tony starts stroking her sides, Quill looks downright alarmed.

“Can I take her up?” Tony asks.

“Uh. No. No I do not think you can.” 


	44. Natasha Sucks the Fun out of Fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:  
> This is all you fault with Clint and Natasha

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Hurt!Clint, Hurt!Natasha, Humor, Banter, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanova
> 
> **Warnings:** None

“This is all your fault,” Clint says, petulantly.

Natasha doesn’t respond immediately. “I won’t deny that.”

“Oh, come on! You have to at least deny it a little! It’s no fun if you just  _give.”_

Natasha smirks, side eyeing him. “I know, that’s why it gives me joy.”

Clint whines.

Patting his cheek, Natasha says, “Come on, we’ve got sixty-three flights to climb and only three legs.”


	45. Tony, "I don't feel well…"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anonymous asked:  
> Tony, "I don't feel well…"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tags:** Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt!Tony
> 
> **Warnings:** None

"I don't feel well…"

Rhodey panics. “What’s your twenty?” he demands. “Cap, Iron Man’s compromised—I repeat, Iron Man is compromised, where is he?”

“Landed,” Tony replies breathlessly through the comms. He groans. Then he gasps, “’m under cover, I think.”

Tony never admits he’s not feeling a hundred percent. Not with words. So the fact that he said it out loud—

Rhodey’s stomach quivers.

“I last saw him on the south point by the crane,” Clint reports.

“We’ll hold them off,” Cap says, his voice calm and commanding. “You go find him, see what’s going on.”

“You hear that, Tones? I’m coming to you.”


	46. The Avengers Adopt Spider-Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> amaronith asked:  
> Luna, everything is terrible and I am perilously close to hitting the point of being TOO STRESSED to do anything but sit and cry. Can I get a cute little fic where there Avengers collectively adopt Spider-Man (at any age. The hilarity of the Avengers deciding a 30 Year Old Peter Parker is their Smollest Son is not lost on me)? Or any other younger super hero? Pretty please?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh no :( let me know if there’s anything i can do to help.  
> \--  
>  **Tags:** Humor, Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Spider-Man, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Peter Parker/Gwen Stacy, Avengers Family
> 
> **Warnings:** mention of romantic relationships

“He’s mine now,” Tony declares.

“You’ll have to fight me for him,” Steve warns and a tiny smile tugs at the corner of Tony’s mouth.

“Um, excuse me, if I belong to anyone it’s Gwen,” Peter says.

Tony waves away his protest easily. “Package deal. She’s ours too.”

“Oh, now we’re sharing?”

“No fighting,” Tony says and the smile in his eyes spreads to the rest of his face when Steve slips an arm around his waist and pulls him up against his body.

“If this is what having a Mom and Dad is like, I think I’ll pass.”

“Don’t forget your Aunts and Uncles,” Clint calls from the other end of the jet.

Peter groans. “I am  _thirty years old_ , I do not need to be adopted!”

“Just try and stop us,” Tony says cheerfully.


	47. Thor and Bruce Have a Moment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for @orbingarrow because someone was a dick >:{

Thor is pretty damn good at seeking Bruce out when the Hulk is uncomfortably close to the surface, but Bruce doesn’t want to be alone.

That sounds like it shouldn’t be a good thing, but Thor isn’t nearly as breakable as the rest of the team, and—for a space jock—he’s pretty decent at knowing when to be boisterous and when to be quiet. Maybe it’s part of being a prince.

Often he talks to Bruce about Asgard and what it’s like there, what he’s seen over the hundreds of years he’s been alive. It reminds Bruce how insignificant he is, which, again, seems like it shouldn’t be a good thing, but somehow is.

“Tell me again about Heimdall and how he sees,” Bruce says.

Thor huffs and leans back against the wall, arms crossing behind his head as he lets his legs sprawl. “You often remind me of my brother with his questions.”

“I think I’m offended,” Bruce says and his tone is mild, but there’s a nasty lurch inside him at the thought of being like Loki.

Thor’s smile falls away, his brow furrowing with irritation. “He was not always the twisted man you know now, you know. And even mad as he is, he has qualities worth admiration.”

Guilt creeps up on Bruce. It’s so easy to forget that Thor grew up with Loki and loved him. Still loves him. Bruce doesn’t think he’d be so forgiving in Thor’s place.

“I’m sorry,” he says, gentling his voice. “You’re right.” He swallows hard, hand tightening around the watering can he’s been sprinkling his plants with. “I guess I see what you mean and… I don’t like it. I don’t want to be like Loki. I don’t want to hurt people.”

Thor gets up and moves over to stand next to Bruce, nudges Bruce with his elbow, mindful of his strength. “You take care he does not to ensure you do not.”

“Yeah, but—” Bruce’s fingers clench. “If it could happen to him it could happen to me.”

Thor places his hand over Bruce’s on the watering can more gently then it seems like he should be capable of and Bruce looks up. Thor’s expression is grave. “I failed to be there for my brother when I was needed, but I have learned my lesson.” His voice lowers. “I will not fail you, Bruce.”

The breath catches in Bruce’s throat, hardening to stone. He nods, unable to speak.

Bruce couldn’t have ever imagined being friends with someone like Thor, but he’s so, so grateful to have ended up here.


	48. Nat Wears Tony's Hoodies When She Needs His Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> for you know who you are

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took 5 years and isn’t terribly long, but ilu and i hope you’re doing better <3  
> \--  
>  **Tags:** Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Natasha Romanov  & Tony Stark, Fluff, Tony is a Good Bro
> 
>  **Warnings:** none

“Your thing with the suits borderlines pathological,” Clint says, tossing a blueberry.

Tony catches it in his open mouth and around chewing says, “You know what, Bird Brain? So does your thing with arrows.”

“Touche,” Clint replies and throws another blueberry.

As Tony follows the arc of it through the air, he catches sight of Natasha coming through the kitchen doorway.

She’s wearing his Air Force hoodie that was once Rhodey’s Air Force hoodie.

The blueberry glances off of Tony’s cheek. “Bye, Clint,” he says and Clint frowns at him.

“I’m only kidding, I—oh.”

The second he sees Natasha his face falls and he shoots a mildly jealous look at Tony, but he takes the blueberries and goes.

“Tasha,” Tony says and she turns bloodshot eyes on him, scowling.

“What?” she snaps.

Tony raises his eyebrows. “You’re wearing my hoodie.”

He knows this is how she vocalizes when she needs comfort, from him specifically, but it doesn’t necessarily make it easier for her to accept it, so he doesn’t take offense at her tone. God only knows how he became one of her go-to guys for comfort, but he did and he doesn’t take the responsibility lightly.

“Yeah,” Natasha agrees obstinately.

“Do you want a hug or something else?”

“Something else.”

“Do you want to talk or something else?”

The sound of voices in the hall diverts Natasha’s attention and she tenses. A moment later Steve and Thor appear in the doorway and they both glance around the kitchen on automatic reflex, spotting him and Natasha almost immediately. They stop.

“Sorry,” Steve says, and starts backing out, Thor following his lead.

“Apologies.”

They’re gone as quickly as they’d come.

“Something else,” Natasha grits.

“Sit together or—”

“Yes.”

“Okay, here or?”

She points at the couch and Tony goes obediently, sitting down and putting his arm across the back. She sits down next to him, close, but not touching.

“Do you want me to talk?” he asks.

Natasha takes a shaky breath and nods.

“Okay,” Tony says, and launches into a monologue about DUM-E’s code because he knows Natasha is a complete nerd for it. It’s a big thing she’s trusted him with and he’ll be damned if he lets her down.


End file.
